Verdugo feels 'very close' to breaking lengthy slump

This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

NEW YORK -- Alex Verdugo enjoyed one of his season highlights on June 14 against the Red Sox at Fenway Park, savoring a trot around the bases after clearing the center-field wall against his former club.

There haven’t been many similar moments for Verdugo to celebrate since then, as a lengthy slump has coincided with the Yankees’ summer swoon. There could be better days ahead, though. Verdugo believes that he and hitting coach James Rowson recently unlocked a mechanical adjustment that could have the club’s resident “dawg” barking loudly again.

“We’re very close. We really are,” Verdugo said Sunday. “I’m hitting the ball better, I’m making better contact. Yeah, there’s a couple of rollovers [to the right side of the infield] in between that. They’re not the best to look at, but we’re going to trust the process and it’s going to come.”

That would be a welcome development for the Yankees, who have struggled to generate offense behind their dynamic duo of Juan Soto and Aaron Judge.

• Judge blasts No. 35, but rest of Yanks' bats fall short

Verdugo saw frequent opportunities in the cleanup spot, which manager Aaron Boone admitted was a result of the lineup being “thin” without designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton, who appears to be moving closer to a return from the 10-day IL (left hamstring strain). Still, Boone moved catcher Austin Wells to the cleanup spot for two out of three of this weekend’s games against the Rays, where Wells remained on Monday.

From June 15 through Sunday’s 6-4 loss to Tampa Bay, Verdugo batted just .143 (16-for-112) with only five extra-base hits (four doubles and one home run). His on-base percentage during that stretch was just .200, along with a .205 slugging percentage -- numbers that pale in comparison to the .757 OPS he was carrying after the June 14 game in Boston.

Boone said that he has checked in with Verdugo to make sure the rough stretch has not shaken the outfielder’s confidence.

“I’ve spoken with him a handful of times,” Boone said. “It’s been a stretch where he’s [hitting balls] on the ground a good bit. I think there’s really good out in front of him still. Nothing has changed. We’re talking about a guy that’s in the physical prime of his career that’s a really good hitter, so you believe that’s going to show up.”

Luck hasn’t exactly been on Verdugo’s side, either. With the bases loaded in the first inning on Sunday, Verdugo ripped a 102.7 mph line drive that landed in first baseman Isaac Paredes’ glove. Hit a few inches in another direction, and Verdugo would have picked up two or three RBIs. He acknowledges that he has been “pressing,” but he does not necessarily see that as a negative development.

“Everybody presses, man. Come on,” he said. “When you’re struggling, you want to get out of it. You want to compete, you want to do something good. I think my version of pressing is just trying. I’m trying hard, and I want to make something happen. I want to help the team, I want to help the guys. I want to get something going.

“In that sense, yeah, I have been pressing a little bit. But the last few games have been better in the sense of being able to control my [at-bats] a little bit. Lately, it was a little anxious in the first pitch, where it was kind of like, ‘I’ve got to put this in play or it’s kind of done.’ For me, it’s just getting back to trusting my eyes, trusting my body and trusting my moves.”

Verdugo said that a tell-tale sign of him being locked in offensively will come when, as a left-handed hitter, he regularly slices balls to the opposite field.

“When I use oppo, that’s the best version of myself,” Verdugo said. “That’s when I’m letting the ball travel. That’s when I’m staying through the ball, staying inside of it. Right now, at first I think it was getting pull-happy and I started getting into bad habits where my front shoulder has been flying out. My hip has been flying out toward the first-base side. We’re not trying to hit ground balls to the pull side.

“ … It’s just going back to trusting that I’ve got time and space to make my move. When we start going oppo, good things will happen.”