After a slow start to the 2018 season, Giancarlo Stanton is starting to hit his stride as a Yankee. He went 10-for-31 (.323) with six extra-base hits during the nine-game homestand, drawing five walks against only six strikeouts. In fact, Stanton has struck out only twice in his last 28 plate appearances. That has dropped his season strikeout rate to a still high but more manageable 31.1%.

Stanton is hitting .252/.339/.516 (127 wRC+) at the quarter point of the season, which is both very good overall and below expectations for the reigning NL MVP. One thing Giancarlo has done, literally since his first at-bat of the season, is mash left-handed pitchers. He took lefty J.A. Happ deep in his first plate appearance as a Yankee, and 40 games later, his numbers against southpaws are silly. Look at this:

Goodness. Stanton’s numbers against lefties are comical. I mean, he’s slugging 1.171 with a 74.1% (!) hard hit rate against southpaws. Yeah, it’s only 35 plate appearances, but they’re 35 out of this world plate appearances. They all count too. All the damage Stanton has done against lefties has helped the Yankees win games (like this and this one).

On the other hand, wow has Giancarlo been bad against righties. For reference, his 70 wRC+ against righties is on par with the overall season numbers for guys like Jordy Mercer, Jose Iglesias, and other no-bat/all-glove middle infielders. Stanton has always been better against lefties than righties, there’s nothing unusual about that, but his platoon split was never this massive.

Two things stand out to me watching Stanton against righties this season. One, he’s been swinging and missing a lot, especially at fastballs. Not just fastballs, but hittable fastballs. Last year he missed with 25.9% of his swings against right-handed fastballs. So far this year it’s 34.5%. And just like last season, most of those swings and misses have come on high fastballs:

Elevated fastballs are a great swing-and-miss pitch, especially against Stanton. There is always going to be some swing-and-miss in his game. That’s just who he is as a hitter. This year though, he’s swinging and missing against right-handed fastballs far more often than in the past. We’ve even seen him swing through less than elite fastballs too. It’s not only the guys throwing 97-98 mph who’ve gotten heaters by him.

And two, when Stanton does make contact against righties, he’s hit an awful lot of ground balls. Go look at the table at the top of the post again. He has a 56.8% ground ball rate against righties. Last season Stanton had a 44.0% ground ball rate against righties. It was 38.0% the year before. His career rate is 43.7%. Check out Giancarlo’s spray chart against right-handers so far this season:

Stanton has been wearing out the left side of the infield with jam shot grounders. How many bats has he broken this season? It feels like two a game. For a power hitter — the game’s preeminent power hitter at that — a 56.8% ground ball rate against righties is a problem. You can’t hit grounders over the fence. Against righties, Stanton has been swinging and missing a bunch, and he’s been hitting lots of ground balls. Not a good combination!

The question now is why. Why against righties is he swinging and missing so much and hitting so many ground balls? I’m certain it’s a combination of things rather than one thing. To start with the obvious: Is Stanton’s stance too closed? I mean, look at it:

I can’t remember seeing another hitter with a stance that closed. It is extreme. Is Stanton too closed? Maybe! But he crushed righties last season and was NL MVP using that extremely closed stance. I’m inclined to believe the closed stance is not the problem right now. I’m going to defer to Giancarlo here. He knows what works for him and what doesn’t.

New pitchers? Pressing? Small sample size? All possible explanations for Stanton’s struggles against righties. Right now I’m in wait and see mode. As bad as they’ve been, I don’t think 120 plate appearances warrant a mechanical change or outright panic. Give it a few weeks, see whether Stanton is coming around against righties, then reassess.

The good news is the Yankees are scheduled to face a lefty tonight (Gio Gonzalez), two more lefties this weekend in Kansas City (Danny Duffy, Eric Skoglund), and another lefty next week in Texas (Cole Hamels). Stanton crushes lefties and the Yankees are going to see some the next few days. At some point they’re going need him to come around against righties though. They need Stanton to be more than a high-end platoon player.

Twenty-two games into the new season, Giancarlo Stanton has yet to provide the Yankees will the kind of impact expected from the reigning NL MVP. Granted, he is hitting .213/.307/.438 (105 wRC+), so it’s not Stanton has been completely useless. He just hasn’t been an MVP caliber performer to date. It’s early. Give him some time to get comfortable and he’ll mash.

Last year Stanton made a noticeable in-season adjustment and closed up his batting stance, allowing him to better reach the outside pitch. That closed stance remains this year. Stanton now appears to be making another adjustment, and it’s a common one for new Yankees: He’s taking aim at Yankee Stadium’s short right field porch.

Stanton, a right-handed hitter, is hitting the ball to the opposite field far more often this year than he has in the past. Here are his pull and opposite field rates going into last night’s game:

Giancarlo’s home run Monday night was yanked to left field, sure, but he also had two opposite field singles in the game. His two Opening Day homers were hit to the right field side of center field, remember. So far this season Stanton has four opposite field hits. He had 17 all of last year, 13 the year before that, and five (!) the year before that.

This opposite field approach didn’t come out of nowhere and the regular season isn’t the first time we’re seeing it. Stanton worked on shooting the ball to the other way all throughout Spring Training. Remember all those rockets he banged off the right field wall during Grapefruit League play? Many on hilarious low-effort swings?

Usual approach or not, Stanton is hitting the ball the other more often this season than he has in the past. His highest single month opposite field rate last season was 27.4% in May. No other month was over 20.3%. Here are Stanton’s best opposite field months among his 31 months with at least 90 plate appearances:

1. May 2014: 30.3%
2. March/April 2018: 30.2%
3. May 2017: 27.4%
4. June 2016: 27.1%
5. June 2012: 27.0%

There are still six games to be played this month, so that 30.2% opposite field rate can come down in a hurry. Right now though, Stanton is on track to have only his second career month with at least 30% of batted balls going the other way, and his first since way back in 2014. Coincidence? Possibly! Given the inherent advantage of going the other way as a right-handed hitter at Yankee Stadium, there might be more to this than sample size noise.

If Stanton is consciously trying to hit the ball to the opposite field — and again, he might not be — is it a good idea? Does he need to change his approach? Stanton has had a ton of success as a pull hitter, and it’s not like he’s short on power. He can hit the ball out of any ballpark. Being a pull hitter — Stanton’s 43.4% pull rate from 2010-17 ranked 119th among 467 qualified hitters, so he’s not an extreme pull hitter — has worked for him, so why fix what isn’t broken?

To me, this is similar to the batting stance change last year. It’s all about getting better. The Yankee Stadium short porch turns fly balls that are routine outs elsewhere into home runs. If Stanton is able to better use the opposite field to take advantage of the short porch without ruining what he does best — ferociously pull the ball — great! I applaud him for trying. Every stadium is unique and hitters (and pitchers) are smart to tailor their game to their home ballpark.

Now, if the opposite field approach doesn’t work — we’re still a long way from knowing that, I’d say — going back may not be so easy. Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann became enamored with the short porch and it cost them production. It doesn’t seem like the short porch could hamper a right-handed hitter the same way we’ve seen it hamper a left-handed hitter, but who knows? What if Stanton turns into an opposite field singles hitter? Oy vey.

The 2018 season is still young and we’ll see how Giancarlo approaches his at-bats in the coming weeks and month. If the opposite field approach continues, it’ll be a pretty good indication he’s doing this on purpose. If not, well, either it was a fluke month or something Stanton abandoned early. Stanton doesn’t need the short porch to hit for power. But, if he figures out how to use it without hurting his ability to pull the ball, the Yankees will be that much more dangerous.

The first 16 games of the Giancarlo Stanton era have not gone according to plan. Well, 15 of the first 16 games have not gone according to plan. Opening Day was pretty rad. Overall though, Stanton is sitting on a .197/.293/.409 (96 wRC+) batting line with a 38.7% strikeout rate in the early going, and he’s getting booed on a daily basis at Yankee Stadium. It’s dumb, but whatever.

Naturally, there are no shortage of theories why Stanton has started slowly. He can’t handle the pressure of New York, he doesn’t like the cold, his swing is a mess, last year was a fluke, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda. I fall in the “dude, it’s been 16 games, give it time” camp. Stanton didn’t suddenly forget how to play baseball. That doesn’t make his slow start any less frustrating or any less damaging to the team, of course.

One aspect of Stanton’s game is obviously lagging in the early going. He’s not crushing fastballs anymore. You don’t hit 59 homers in a season and average 44 homers per 162 games in your career without being able to murder a mistake fastball out over the plate. So far this season, Stanton has been unable to do that. Look at his numbers against fastballs in the strike zone:

Stanton annihilated fastballs in the zone in 2017. Again, you don’t hit 59 homers without hammering heaters in the strike zone. Stanton crushed fastballs in the zone in 2015 and 2016 as well, just not as much as he did in 2017. Not surprising. Point is, from 2015-17, Stanton had a ton of success against heaters in the zone. A ton.

This year though, Stanton has been comfortably below average on fastballs in the strike zone in terms of results. A .267 AVG is below average and a .200 ISO is basically average, possibly even slightly below-average once you factor in Yankee Stadium. Also, that whiffs-per-swing rate? Oy vey. It’s way up. More than double the league average more than 50% worse than last year.

The good news? When he does connect with a fastball in the zone, Stanton is hitting it hard and with a similar launch angle as last year. A drop in exit velocity and/or launch angle would be a big red flag(s). The fact he’s still making high-end contact on these pitches when he does connect is reassuring. He’s just not connecting often enough. Not nearly enough.

The question now is why. Why is he swinging and missing on so many fastballs in the zone? Beats me. That’s up to Stanton and hitting coaches Marcus Thames and P.J. Pilittere to figure out. My guess is it is not one thing. Stanton’s probably out of whack mechanically, he’s probably pressing, and facing pitchers he doesn’t have much history with is probably contributing to all this as well.

As long as he’s not injured — a drop in exit velocity and/or launch angle could be a sign of injury, but those numbers are fine — I’m confident Stanton will get things straightened out. He’s slumped before — he’s slumped badly before, this is a dude who once went 0-for-17 with 15 strikeouts — and he’s come out of every time. Stanton went 6-for-12 against the Red Sox last week. You don’t have to go far back to see the last time he looked good at the plate.

Right now, for whatever reason(s), Stanton is not having much success with fastballs in the strike zone, the pitches he should be mashing. Instead, he’s swinging through way too many ’em. He’s only 28, it’s not like we should be worried his bat speed is deteriorating. Stanton has a history of mechanical funks and there’s a pretty good chance he’s pressing at the plate. Give him time, and soon enough a bunch of those empty swings on fastballs in the zone will turn back into loud contact.