As far as opportune timing goes, Giancarlo Stanton’s return to the Yankees’ lineup is right on schedule.
Shortly after the team reinstated him from the 60-day injured list, Stanton started in left field and hit fifth in Wednesday night’s game against the Angels. Manager Aaron Boone, however, isn’t ready to give the 29-year-old outfielder — who has been sidelined since June 25 with a strained posterior cruciate ligament in his right knee — a full workload just yet.
Boone said before the game that Stanton would only play four to five innings with a couple of at-bats to ease him back into play. But the plan remains for the four-time All-Star to integrate himself back into the lineup as a full-time starter.
“Just building him up and hopefully getting him at-bats to where he can get into a good rhythm,” Boone said of Stanton, who doubled in his first at-bat in the bottom of the second inning. “Probably, if everything goes well today, maybe DH him tomorrow for a full game and then maybe an off-day.
“We’ll just kind of see how he’s responding. I would expect him to play regularly, try and build him up appropriately though on the defensive side.”
It will be Stanton’s ninth start in the field since he began rehabbing his right knee, which is just the most recent injury he has suffered this season. Before the knee injury, Stanton battled strains in his left biceps, left shoulder and left calf, which sidelined him for nearly two-and-a-half months after he had played the first three games of the season in March.
Boone said Tuesday he would consult with Stanton and the training staff before mapping out a plan. After wrestling with whether to have him be the designated hitter or play in the field for his first game back, Boone said that after speaking with Stanton, they agreed sending him into the field was the best course of action.
Stanton, acquired by the Yankees from the Marlins in December 2017, had just 31 at-bats this season in the majors before Wednesday. He had recorded nine hits, including a double and a home run, with seven RBIs and four runs in nine games.
But Stanton’s return comes at just as the Yankees’ outfield is in serious need of reinforcement following a slew of injuries.
Aaron Hicks went down in the beginning of August with an elbow injury, keeping him out of 42 games heading into Wednesday.
Most recently, Mike Tauchman suffered a season-ending strained calf on Sept. 8 in Boston. And with sluggers Edwin Encarnacion (oblique) and Gary Sanchez (groin) working their way back to the lineup, Stanton’s big bat will certainly help.
“It’s great to have [Stanton] back,” Brett Gardner told The Post on Wednesday. “I know it’s been a long road for him to go through this thing with his knee and sit back and watch. It’ll be good to see him out there.”
Gardner acknowledged how fortunate the team has been to have certain players step up while repeated injuries threatened to derail the Yankees’ season, but mentioned how Stanton has the ability to make any lineup better.
“His intensity that he brings, his presence that he has in the lineup,” Gardner said of Stanton. “I’m excited to have him out there next to me in left field tonight.”
Stanton, who is in the fifth year of a 13-year, $325 million deal he signed with the Marlins, completed the final stretch of his rehab stint with an Instructional League game over the weekend.
Boone expects Encarnacion to be an option before the regular season is over, with Sanchez also serving as a possibility depending on how he continues to progress.