Last Month Checkpoint of The 2026 New York Yankees Season W Beat Writer Greg Joyce (Yankees Pod)

Yeah, absolutely.

Spencer Jones has been really good as of late.

In his last 20 games, he has an OPS of 834.

He's hitting in 41 plate appearances with runners in scoring position.

His slash is 324, 415, 588.

That's an OPS of 1.003. Trent Grisham has been struggling.

And, you know, we're moving the chess pieces along now.

And Aaron Judge is going to be back soon.

And we'll get to the Aaron Judge and injury update.

But when Aaron Judge is back, think he's got to be the center fielder right now I truly do he's hitting against lefties he's doing everything right uh what are your thoughts on that whole situation

yeah he's making it a tough decision for sure uh it seems like he's earned the right to at least eat into some of that playing time in center field um you know I think they still think Grisham can kind of get hot again like we've seen it in a couple stretches this year I think right before he got hurt with the hamstring he was he had a maybe a month where he was he was getting on base time and hitting really well and Then for a little bit when he came off the aisle, but now it's been a couple of weeks where it's just not really been there for him.

And meanwhile, Spencer's obviously gone on this, on this real hot stretch.

So it's interesting timing of, you know, especially because when, when judge comes back, they got to open a roster spot and Jones has minor league options.

So like one of the, the ways to do that without losing anybody, you know, from the organization potentially is to, to option Jones.

But I don't know how you do that now when he's been one of your best hitters in uh really go you know kind of going on a month now um so i think you know when he started against the lefty the other night in the series finale against the angels started in center field that was notable um and it wasn't just to give grisham a day it was uh you know boone said that spencer's earned it you know the right to get in there some and he uh he went over four with four strikeouts but like in general he has hit left he's pretty well in a small sample size so um Yeah.

It's going to be interesting.

Cause you know, the, you know, you're going to have on almost every day, you're going to have Bellinger and left judge and right.

And then, so it's, do you go, do you try to have Grisham play his way out of it? Do you go with the hot hand with Spencer Jones? And if you do go with Spencer, like how do you open up a roster spot for judge? Like that put, you know, Ahmed Rosario in danger of losing his roster spot.

You know, he started to look a little bit better the last handful of games.

So yeah, You know, there's been a couple of times this year where it's like there's a guy coming back from an injury and there's some questions about what they're going to do and then somebody else gets injured.

So maybe this is all moot and something ends up happening anyways.

But, you know, it could be like a week out from having to make that decision.

So I think it's going to be hard-pressed to, you know, put out a lineup with Spencer not in it just because he's been one of your best hitters over this last month especially.

Pretend that you – are the manager and we're just, or maybe a scout.

Let's say you're the scout.