Yankees' Joey Gallo Feels Good at Plate After Productive Offseason
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NEW YORK — The Joey Gallo that Yankees fans were introduced to in the second half of the 2021 regular season wasn't the "normal Joey Gallo."
That's according to, well, Gallo himself.
"I was in a bad spot at the plate, I didn't really feel good at the plate and my swing was a little off," Gallo told reporters this week, opening up about his discouraging debut with the Yankees last summer.
Acquired in a trade deadline deal with the Rangers, Gallo hit .160 (30-for-188) over 58 games as a Yankee last year. While he managed to slug 13 home runs in that span, finishing the year with 38 if you count his time in Texas, the outfielder struck out 88 times in pinstripes, leading to some harsh—and warranted—criticism.
After the season ended, and as Major League Baseball went dark over the course of a lengthy lockout, Gallo endeavored to return to form offensively. This is a player that already strikes out quite a bit, but his numbers with his new team were an abomination, worse than usual.
"I just took a break and then picked the bat up again. It like cleanses yourself," Gallo said. "You don't have to swing every day. Take a month off, two months off and then you pick a bat up again and you start doing it the natural way again, and start making sure you're working on that every time you do it. That's kind of how it works for me at least."
The 28-year-old compared his situation to that of a golfer struggling to get their swing back on track. Repetitions with the wrong swing lead to bad habits and poor mechanics are tough to break, especially when you're still expected to produce on a day-to-day basis.
"I looked back and a lot of things were a little off that I usually am not doing," Gallo said.
It's hard to assess any player's performance at this point in the season—with a minuscule sample size—but so far, it looks like Gallo's work this offseason is starting to pay off.
Gallo has put the ball in play eight times in four games. Sure, only three of them were hits, but six of those batted balls registered an exit velocity north of 97 mph.
Exit velocity isn't everything, but Gallo is barreling the baseball, putting together good at-bats that have resonated with his manager.
"He's winning a lot of pitches, he's on a lot of pitches, he's still controlling the strike zone," Aaron Boone said after Gallo's two-hit performance on Monday night. "I know that gets talked a lot about but I feel like he's in a really good place and in position to go do what we know he can do. I thought for the most part tonight, had more quality at-bats. It's good to see him get some results with it."
Asked if he's been frustrated with some of the results he's had through the first few games of the year, whacking a couple blistering line drives right at defenders, Gallo smiled and said it's part of the game.
"I can't really help what happens after I hit the ball," he explained. "Go hit the ball hard, swing at strikes, and hopefully God's on my side. Most of the time this weekend he wasn't, but you just got to keep doing that. It is what it is."
Both Boone and Yankees shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa (who was Gallo's teammate in Texas) also spoke about the outfielder's plate coverage so far in 2022, getting to pitches that he would've swung through last summer.
Rather than only seeing the three true outcomes—home run, walk or strikeout—Gallo has been putting the ball in play in more ways through four games, an early indication of his increased comfortability in the box.
"Now that he's actually putting the bat on the ball in the game, it's giving us way more opportunity," Kiner-Falefa said. "I think for him it's different because anytime he makes contact, I think he expects it to be a home run, but right now, it's pretty cool that he's putting the ball in play that much and it's hard contact. It's different for him, so it's gonna take a little bit of adjustment for him, but it's nice to see him putting the ball in play in different ways rather than just the same way. The adjustments that he's made in the offseason, you can tell that it's kind of coming in."
Time will tell if Gallo is able to settle into a groove going forward, doing damage in the middle of New York's order on a consistent basis. If he continues to hit the ball hard, however, it's safe to assume that more results will follow.
"Sometimes this is luck of the draw. Sometimes you hit it right at somebody," Gallo said. "You just got to keep swinging it. I feel good. At some point, things will turn my way I guess. Those will start landing and being doubles and home runs and whatnot.
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