The sample size is still small, just as it was during his first stint as a big leaguer.
But in his second go-around with the Yankees, Spencer Jones, who did not play in the Yankees’ 10-5 win over the White Sox on Wednesday night, is looking like he belongs while flashing the tools that have long made him a tantalizing prospect — and not just the power.
With a runway for everyday at-bats in center field, as the Yankees try to hold the fort down without Aaron Judge, Trent Grisham and Giancarlo Stanton in the lineup, Jones is beginning to settle in and produce while using his first taste of the majors to his advantage.
“Seeing a mature hitter up there,” Ben Rice, who came up through the minor leagues with Jones, said Wednesday. “Slow heartbeat, looking for his pitch and going up there with a plan and just trying to execute.”
Take Tuesday’s win over the White Sox. After homering to the second deck in his first at-bat, a bullet that came off the bat at 111.6 mph, Jones came to the plate again with the bases loaded and one out in the third inning of a game the Yankees led 3-1. It might have been human nature for Jones to just swing for the fences again and try to deliver a knockout punch to White Sox righty Davis Martin, who entered the game as one of the American League’s best pitchers to date.
Instead, Jones worked a 3-2 count and then laid off a fastball just off the inside corner to take his walk, forcing in a run and keeping the line moving with his strong plate discipline.
“Everyone wants to talk about the power, the speed, the size,” Rice said. “But he has really sharpened that tool, especially over the last couple seasons.”
The 6-foot-7 Jones is going to strike out, no matter how many adjustments he makes as he gets used to facing big league pitching. But if he can do so at a respectable clip while putting together consistently tough at-bats along with the power displays, the strikeouts become much easier to live with.
“Even going back to his first [stint] when he didn’t get a lot of results, the at-bats were competitive,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Since coming back this last time, it’s gotten even better. It’s been game in and game out, I feel like he’s really putting together quality at-bats. Obviously you know the power is real. So when you have that kind of power and obviously the opponent’s aware of that, when you can control the zone with it, that’s a dangerous combination. It’s been great to see. Feel like he’s just in a really good frame of mind and going into the game with a good plan and executing.”
Across 10 games in his first stint as a big leaguer in May, Jones hit .167 (4-for-24) with a .426 OPS, 12 strikeouts, three walks and no home runs. He faced some tough pitching along the way — including making his debut against arguably the most dominant pitcher in the majors this season, Jacob Misiorowski — and put together some good at-bats along the way.
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But since returning earlier this month as a replacement for the injured Aaron Judge, Jones has looked even more comfortable at the plate. In eight games during his second stint entering Wednesday (when he was out of the lineup against White Sox left-hander Anthony Kay), he was batting .318 (7-for-22) with a 1.059 OPS, nine strikeouts, four walks and two home runs.
“You can visualize what the major leagues are going to be like, but until you’re in there and see it, expectation and reality don’t always match up,” Jones said. “That first go at it was a lot of new information, a lot of new things, different routines.
“I think having a couple weeks to meditate on the things that were going on from my first call-up and certain actions on the field, certain routine things, certain mentalities, certain approaches to the game, I was really able to focus on and know that next time I get an opportunity that I’ll make the most out of it.”