DENVER — When a lot of the Yankees left the Stadium on Sunday after their 91st game of the season, they were under the impression that Dillon Lawson was still their hitting coach.
By the top of the night, nonetheless, Lawson had been fired, taking the autumn for the Yankees’ first–half offensive woes.
And by the point the Yankees reconvened on Friday at Coors Field to play their 92nd game of 2023, they sat in on a 30-minute advance meeting through which their latest hitting coach, Sean Casey, put his energetic and passionate persona on full display. The Yankees hope that energy may help jump-start their offense within the second half, even though it had little effect in Friday’s 7-2 loss to the Rockies.
“My impression of him,” Aaron Judge, who took batting practice on the sector for the primary time since going to the IL with a sprained right toe, said with a chuckle, “[is] he’s an excellent personality. He’s a man that brings the energy. He’s going to motivate you, push you a bit bit. While you got a man like that that’s going to be in our corner each pitch, each day, I’m looking forward to it. We just had an excellent hitters’ meeting, a bit team meeting, and he spoke about what he desires to do here.
“The boys were pretty fired up.”
The Yankees entered the All-Star break with an offense that ranked nineteenth in runs per game (4.40), twenty first in OPS (.710), thirteenth in slugging percentage (.410), twenty sixth in on-base percentage (.300) and twenty eighth in batting average (.231).
Still, Judge and DJ LeMahieu each said Lawson’s firing got here as a surprise.
“We weren’t clicking. We weren’t hitting,” LeMahieu said. “I don’t really think it was [Lawson’s] fault. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault. We just weren’t clicking in the primary half offensively. We’re able to get after it [in the second half].”
Brian Cashman said he wanted a latest messenger, which is why he made his first in-season coaching change during his 26-year tenure as Yankees general manager.
Asked if Lawson’s message wasn’t getting through, Judge said he couldn’t speak for everyone.
“Me and Dillon got some quality work in, especially once I had a sense he’d be the hitting coach a pair years ago,” Judge said. “I attempted to spend as much time as I could with him to try to know where he was coming from, what he likes to work on, what his philosophies are. He gave me some good nuggets I still use today.”
That said, the Yankees were looking forward to working with Casey, who brought in quick gravitas owing to his 12-year MLB profession, during which he hit .302 with a .814 OPS.
“I feel everybody has strengths,” Josh Donaldson said. “A part of Sean Casey’s strengths is being within the batters’ box. I feel there may be some knowledge for that. And in addition going through the ups and downs of a season. I definitely think he’s going to have advice and things he feels are going to be useful for us.”
It has been a whirlwind week for Casey, who was announced as the brand new hitting coach on Monday. By Friday, Casey’s former employer, MLB Network, was on the televisions within the visiting clubhouse at Coors Field while Casey ran a hitters’ meeting.
“For as great a man as he’s, and gregarious and charismatic and high-energy and friendly, he’s dead-serious about hitting,” said manager Aaron Boone, who was Casey’s teammate for five seasons on the Reds. “He’s got a variety of knowledge to impart, and I’m confident he’ll find a way to try this.”
