In the search for someone to fill in the New York Yankees hole at first base, Chris Parmelee has nailed his audition to remain at the position.
When the New York Yankees reached an agreement with Chris Parmelee, he would only join the organization as a fill-in roster spot vacated by the injury to Greg Bird.No one thought much else and it was evident when his spring training locker spelled his name clumsily (Parmalee).
Surely, everyone in Yankees’ universe knows him after Parmelee lifted a game-tying home run into second deck and hit another home run in the seventh to guarantee a 12-6 victory for the Bombers. Even better than that, the win was the team’s third straight and carried them within one game of .500.
“He had a tremendous night for us,” manager Joe Girardi told NJ Media. “The tying home run. The big homer late. The double. He made a really good play on the ball hit to [shortstop Didi Gregorius]; the pick that he had to make, that was a tough play. He had a really good night.”
Parmelee, the 28-year-old natural first baseman, hit only .216/.255/.433 with the Orioles in 2015 but put together an impressive .314/.386/.444 slash line at Triple-A Norfolk.
The one aspect of Parmelee’s game that the Yankees love the most is the fact that he owns a has a reasonable .707 OPS over 1,003 plate appearances while containing similar splits in regards to hitting against lefties and righties.
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Until getting the call to the Bronx, Parmelee owned a .252/.343/.444 slash line in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre which was good enough to earn the promotion over Nick Swisher (.238) when Mark Teixeira went on the DL with torn cartilage in his knee.
“When I heard about [Teixeira] coming out of the game, it obviously goes through your head,” Parmelee told the NY Post. “When you’re down in Scranton, you have to keep a positive attitude and get your work in every day because you never know when that phone call might come.”
Prior to Parmelee’s promotion, Rob Refsnyder was the man who saw reps at first base but after the surge by Parmelee last night, Refsnyder may not have a position to keep his bat in the lineup, yet again.
As mentioned before, Parmelee’s OPS against lefties and righties is almost identical (.720 vs LHP, .716 vs RHP) throughout his major league career with the Minnesota Twins, Orioles, and now Yankees.
As for the Yankees’ 25-year old prospect, his OPS against lefties was .622 against worse pitching in Triple-A which was also worse than his OPS against righties.
When you throw in the fact that he’s playing a position he has never played before, there’s every reason to believe that Parmelee will remain there until Teixeira’s plans (rather optimistically) his return.
Speaking of Teixeira, he has two home runs since April 7 in Toronto. Parmelee? Well, he cranked two in his first start as a member of the New York Yankees. Could the production from a position that has always provided for the bombers finally come from “Chicken Parm?”
With the Yankees expected to face off against four right-handed pitchers in a row, it would be foolish to not expect to see the man who has three home runs in ten career games at Yankee Stadium in the lineup.
