Yankees Trent Grisham playing more and exceeding expectations

Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees.This spring, shortly before Aaron Boone began to notice a more lively Trent Grisham in camp, Brian Cashman said he thought the fourth outfielder was going to play more last year after acquiring him from the Padres alongside Juan Soto. Instead, the Yankees’ top three outfielders stayed remarkably healthy and Grisham did not get much run, then struggled when he did, in part because it was the first time he was not getting close to everyday at-bats. “So we’ll see how this year plays out,” Cashman said on Valentine’s Day. “The talent’s all there, the on-base percentage, a little pop, the fact that he can play great defense and stuff, that’s why we tendered him and retained him.

But I don’t think we saw the real version of him because the lanes you would have expected for him to be able to play did not show up and present themselves.” But this? Ten home runs in his first 31 games (one more than he had all last year), a 1.017 OPS and a .292 batting average? Even in the Yankees’ wildest dreams they might not have seen this version of Grisham coming, at least not to this extent. Whatever lanes the Yankees originally saw for him this season, Grisham has since erased them and redrawn them to force his way back into an everyday role.And even on the rare day when he is not starting in center field, he has still found a way to deliver in key spots — like Wednesday night, when he came off the bench to crush a game-tying, two-run home run off tough reliever Jason Adam in what became a 4-3, 10-inning win over the Padres. “Just coming up big spot after big spot, making big plays in the field,” Max Fried said.

“He’s been playing incredible and a big reason why we’ve come off with the wins that we have.” Last month, Boone went as far as saying he did Grisham a “disservice” by not getting him enoug...