TAMPA — If you’re rattling off the 2017 Yankees’ sluggers, you can start with catching phenom Gary Sanchez, who amazingly hit 20 homers in 53 games as a rookie last season.
You have new first baseman Chris Carter, a 6-foot-4, 245 pounder who mashed 41 homers for the Milwaukee Brewers a year ago to tie for the National League lead.
Niese ready to fight for spot in bullpen
Rookie right fielder Aaron Judge, a 6-foot-7, 275-pound giant, can hit the baseball a long, long way, too.
There’s one more oldie but goodie who is a new Yankee this season:
Designated hitter Matt Holliday.
Yankees designated hitter Matt Holliday (right) and Aaron Judge wait for their turns to take batting practice at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa on Feb. 20, 2017. (Randy Miller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
A few hundred Yankees fans attending Monday’s workout had a chance to see Holliday take batting practice at Steinbrenner Field, and the 37-year-old Oklahoman sure provided everyone watching with a memorable first impression.
During one BP round, the right-handed-hitting Holliday hit two long homers in the row, and the second of the two (which we caught on video) was a rocket to left that banged off the scoreboard.
A seven-time All-Star, Holliday has more career homers than any other current Yankee, 295 over 13 seasons, including 20 in 110 games last season for the St. Louis Cardinals. His single-season best is 36 in 2007 when he was with the Colorado Rockies.
Holliday has been a left fielder for all but 41 of his 1,695 career starts — he was at first base nine times and DH 32 times — but manager Joe Girardi’s plan this season if to use him exclusively at DH.
Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
