The New York Yankees have continued their dominance with an eight-game winning streak. Aaron Judge has been the leader of their tremendous season but Anthony Rizzo also deserves a lot of credit. He is third on the team with an OPS of .830 and is posting the best OPS+ (138) of his entire career.
Rizzo has been outstanding this season and is using his trademarked skill to ignite the Yankees' offense. According to Ian Harrison of AP, he said that getting hit by pitches makes him a better hitter.
“When I get hit by pitches, I feel like it really locks me in more, just staying on the ball,” Rizzo said. “The last few weeks, I just needed to get hit. I went in a big slump of not getting hit for two or three weeks. It ended up being an inside joke in here. The way I take pitches is different, I guess.”
Rizzo has always been known as a batter who gets hit by pitches, as he has a major lead on the HBP leaderboard since his debut in 2011. Using it as a way to kickstart a rally or get him to lock in more has helped the Yankees lay waste to their opponents. Along with Judge and Rizzo, Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres are mashing and the pitching as a whole is among the very best in baseball.
Rizzo compared this Yankees squad to his 2016 Chicago Cubs team that won it all. His abilities are a key reason why the Yankees could do the same this season.
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