CLEVELAND — There is hot, and then there is drilling a 100 mph cutter from Emmanuel Clase for a game-tying double in the ninth inning hot.
Anthony Volpe is the latter.
The Yankees’ second-year shortstop continued his strong start to the season Sunday, racking up another three-hit game — including an impressive at-bat against Clase — plus a walk before the Yankees fell to the Guardians 8-7 in 10 innings.
“He’s squaring it up every [time],” manager Aaron Boone said. “I would argue he’s hitting into tough luck even. He’s putting together a good at-bat every time. Clase’s obviously about as good as they get at the back end. Just a great at-bat to tie that game.”
Volpe had never faced Clase before Sunday, but leaned on his teammates who had for some advice on how the Guardians closer’s triple-digit cutter moves before stepping into the box.
With two outs and Oswaldo Cabrera at first, Volpe got a 2-1 cutter over the plate and lined it the other way into the gap to tie the game.
“He has incredible stuff,” Volpe said. “Just tried to stick to the approach.”
His veteran teammates were impressed.
“Anything with triple digits and moving like a cutter, it’s damn near impossible to hit,” Aaron Judge said. “But he took a great swing, didn’t try to do too much with it and just tried to stay inside it. You get rewarded when you do things like that.”
It was more of what the Yankees have seen early on this season from Volpe, who ended the day batting .382 with a 1.041 OPS in 15 games and tied with Juan Soto for the team lead in hits (21).
He has also continued to look comfortable in the leadoff spot, going 6-for-15 with five walks and four runs in four games since moving there.
One of the main focuses of Volpe tweaking his swing over the offseason was allowing him to have better coverage of different pitches and locations than he did during his rookie season.
Drilling a double off Clase was a prime example of that for the soon-to-be 23-year-old.
“Incredible,” Judge said. “For him to come up there and battle off some tough pitches and then … drive a ball to right field like that and get it over his head. … It was impressive. He’s just been impressive to watch all season long. We’re going to continue to watch that, I think.”
