NEW YORK — There’s no sulking or frustration in Joey Gallo’s mannerisms even though there probably should be. Even though he contributed an about-time homer Saturday in a losing cause, his slumping since changing teams just before this summer’s trade deadline has been epic.
Gallo is taking all of his failure with a grain of salt.
He’s hitting .143 with 55 strikeouts in 116 bats over his first 28 games since joining the Yankees. He leads the majors in strikeouts. He was 0-for-17 and 4-for-53 before his two-run, game-tying eighth-inning liner into the right-field seats Saturday. But none of that seems to faze Gallo.
Here’s one of his takeaways from all of this struggling after the Yankees’ brutal 4-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium:
“Coming over in a trade and especially to a market like New York, you want to play well right out of the gate. I haven’t necessarily done that, especially really well. For me, it’s more of a learning opportunity, like, what is it like to struggle here?”
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Gallo feels that he hasn’t “necessarily” performed well. That sure is being easy on himself, but it’s already being hammered home to him that struggling for the Yankees isn’t the same as slumping with the Rangers. He’s already received some boos at Yankee Stadium.
“I know it’s different than when I was in Texas,” Gallo said. “There’s a lot more eyes. There’s a lot more media coverage, and that’s OK. I think it’s a good test for me. Obviously, I don’t want to not play well. It’s going to happen, so I just have to deal with it and just keep pushing forward.”
His whole transition to suddenly being a New York after playing for years in Texas has been a whirlwind.
“It’s been crazy,” Gallo said. “Honestly, it’s tough to find a place here. Traffic is … wow! I underestimated it a little bit. The drive to the field is a little bit longer, drive homes a lot longer. But that’s part of playing in New York and I think that’s part of what makes it great at the same time.
“It’s just unique in that aspect. But it’s been challenging. You’re pretty much told you’re playing for the Yankees now and figure out how to get there. It’s a little different, but at the end of the day it’s just about playing baseball and that all takes care of itself.”
The easygoing Gallo is confident that his slide will lead to a hot streak, which for him usually means hitting a little over .200 with a bunch of walks and putting more than his share of baseballs in the seats.
His overall stats are a mixed bag. His .200 season average is poor, as are his 180 strikeouts in 426 at-bats, which is a 42.3% percent that‘s worse than Gary Sanchez’s well-documented 41% in 2020. But on the flip side, Gallo’s 100 walks lead the AL, his 31 homers are tied for ninth in the league and his .357 on-base percentage ranks 16th. Not bad.
But all of his stats have dipped dramatically since he’s become a Yankee, and that has to make manager Aaron Boone nervous, even though he’s been characteristically positive.
Gallo says that he’s doing everything that he can to snap out of his hitting funk.
“I’ve worked with the hitting guys here and looked at video from back when I was in Texas and going well,” Gallo said. “We’re just bouncing ideas off of each other. I’ve always been kind of streaky.”
Gallo is hoping his home run on Saturday is the start of a hot streak.
“I think you take one good swing and you start building off that, you start getting confidence, and that’s how guys get hot,” he said. “For me, it’s just about just continuing to grind it out, show up every day and things will things will start changing.”
They might start changing. Gallo is a prolific left-handed slugger, but just a career .206 hitter who batted .199 in 2020 and .181 in 2019. Thus, his .200 this year is a slight improvement, which is scary. But Gallo and the Yankees care about homers, walks and on-base percentage way more than a very poor batting average and crazy-high strikeout rate. He’s all about working long at-bats that lead to a free pass or a mistake pitch that gets crushed a long way like the 1-2 offering that he belted on Saturday.
“That was pretty big for me individually,” Gallo said. “Obviously, things haven’t been going great for me, but it’s part of the game and you learn how to deal with that and you keep pushing every day. It was good to get a little bit of a result in a pretty big situation, so hopefully I can build off that.”
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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com.
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