Aaron Boone says George Lombard Jr. will be the Yankees primary shortstop moving forward
Aaron Boone hopes the offense and off days make up for the Yankees not trading for relievers
Video Transcript
Lombard is called up.
Jack Curry says he's going to be the sh- starting shortstop.
He'll be the everyday shortstop going forward Yeah, he's definitely gonna get run.
Like I'll for, you know, pick my spots, right?
Where, you know, I'd probably give him a day here and there, but yeah, George is coming up to play.
Will he be playing other positions?
Yeah, we'll see.
My plan right now is, is mostly shortstop, but, you know, we'll see how it evolves here, and again, you know, we're trying to get back to the postseason and win.
So, but, but George has ear- earned the opportunity to be here, earn this.
You know, I think we feel like he's ready.
He's gonna get that opportunity, and we wanna see him succeed, obviously.
Can you peel back the curtain or give any insight for us on when th- this decision got made for Lombard?
Like, because it came right after the deadline.
To me, there's a, a, a chance this was maybe, you know, a, a week ago you're like, "Hey, i- if we can do this move or this move," like was it dependent, or did you kinda know after the deadline he's deserved it, let's call him up?
Yeah.
It's been on our board now for a couple weeks, like something we've been talking about.
You know, obviously he had the injury that, you know, was fairly minor in, in the grand scheme of things, so it, it didn't cost him a ton of time, but, you know, obviously we wanted to give him a little runway coming out of that.
He was playing so well before the injury that, you know, it started to be, you know, maybe a conversation that he was gonna be in play, you know, sooner rather than later.
Then he had the injury, but we wa- we wanted to give him some runway coming out of that injury just to get in rhythm and get going, and he's done that.
He picked up where he left off essentially.
And so I think it became more of a conversation this, over this last week, where we considered it.
And then we got close to the deadline and, and felt like, well, let's wait till the end of the deadline just because you never know what might happen in, in a number of different areas.
So that, that was the only, you know, kind of holdup maybe in the last 24 to 48 hours.
And as far as, like batting order, are, is the plan to keep him down at the bottom?
You know, Volpe was batting fifth every now and then.
Yeah.
And it's not a one for one replace- Yeah exactly, but- We'll pop him in the bottom some, but I mean, the reality is, you know, when we're facing a lefty, you know, I'll probably have to move him up more and more towards the middle of the order.
But, like tonight, I have him hitting eighth.
That'll probably be kind of the plan moving forward, but again, we'll see how it unfolds.
But excited to have him, excited for him and his family and, you know, he's earned the opportunity to be here
