With Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge both injured, the New York Yankees acquired Heliot Ramos from the San Francisco Giants at the trade deadline.
He was a .264 hitter with the Giants this season and had an OPS+ above 100. However, with the Yankees, he is 4-for-42. Despite his struggles, Aaron Boone has kept him in the heart of the Yankees lineup.
"I think there’s a level of, ‘He wants to show us,’ but we know we got a good player here and a good hitter,” Boone said before Wednesday's game against the Baltimore Orioles, per New York Daily News' Gary Phillips. “He’s fit in very well here. I think you just want to prove yourself, so there’s probably a little bit of that going on.”
It's natural for a player to want to prove himself in a new uniform, but Ramos has struggled to do that. He is a victim of some bad luck, with his quality of contact actually being pretty good, but this is a results-based league.
Ramos is very good against left-handed pitching, but the Yankees' injuries have made him an everyday player. He has faced a ton of right-handers, but that could change when Cody Bellinger, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge return.
“One of the things he’s always done is hit lefties,” Boone said, “and he’s come over here and we’ve faced 1,000 right-handers in a row.”
Ramos has an .834 career OPS against southpaws and a .686 OPS against righties. The Yankees are not going to bench Bellinger or Judge when they are back to play Ramos against a lefty, but he could get starts against lefties instead of Trent Grisham or Spencer Jones. Ramos is a former All-Star, and Boone believes he will start to look more like it soon.