Yankees hot-hitting outfielders lend good problem to valuable rest days

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— The odd man out Sunday was Trent Grisham, who was not in the starting lineup against righty Luis Severino.Every day the Yankees are sitting a player who deserves to start because of the so-called good problem: They have four outfielders and a designated hitter who are all hitting.It is hard to bench Grisham, Jasson Domínguez or Cody Bellinger, and they cannot remove Aaron Judge’s bat.
If one of that group serves as DH, they would lose Ben Rice’s bat from the order (unless Rice moves to first base, which would push out Paul Goldschmidt).Rice’s bat also is difficult to pluck from the lineup, a fact reinforced by his fifth-inning grand slam that added some separation in a 12-2 blowout over the A’s at Sutter Health Park.The dilemma could be solved if, say, Rice (already playable at first and able to catch, subbed in to work with Tyler Matzek in Sunday’s ninth inning) mastered third base, but manager Aaron Boone said they are still not considering asking Rice to play another position.At least not yet.If everyone stays healthy and Giancarlo Stanton returns, the Yankees would have one more bat to shoehorn into the lineup.“When we get to a situation, if we got to get a little creative with things, we’ll do that,” Boone said when asked if they have thought about asking Rice or any outfielders to learn second or third base.Boone has maintained that he is happy with the current configuration, which essentially means that he can afford to give everyone (with the exception of Judge) a day off each week.“I think so far it’s worked out really well,” Boone said.
“Keeping all these guys playing basically every day but also that one day they circle in and get some rest I think is hopefully something that’s valuable moving forward throughout the season and serves us well as we get deep in...