Why Yankees are willing to live with 'work in progress' Brandon Drury

by Felix Pantaleón

Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Brandon Drury is a “work in progress” at first base before giving him a start there against the Red Sox on Saturday.

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NEW YORK — Greg Bird rocked two home runs in the Yankees’ 8-1 route of the Red Sox on Friday night – a possible sign that he’s breaking out of his monthlong slump.

It wasn’t enough to keep the Yankees from giving Brandon Drury a try at first base.

Drury, swinging a hot bat at Triple-A, was slated to make his major-league debut at the position vs. Boston at Yankee Stadium on Saturday.

Manager Aaron Boone acknowledged there might be some bumps at the position for Drury, who played there just six times at Triple-A before getting called up Friday.

“I look at it as, it is going to be kind of a work in progress over there,” Boone said of Drury, who was hitting .314 with five home runs and 29 RBI in 48 games at Triple-A. “Obviously we feel like, athletically, he’s more than capable of handling it, and it’s one of the questions that we asked of our player development people down below.

“(We asked Triple-A manager) Bobby Mitchell, is he ready for this? Is he ready to handle this? The answer was yes. It is something he doesn’t have a lot of experience, it’s probably not going to be perfect. Athletically, he should be able to make up for some of that inexperience.”

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Boone did think about leaving Bird in Saturday, though the specter of the lefty swinger facing lefty-killer Chris Sale wasn’t appetizing.

“It was a consideration,” Boone said. “I was leaning toward still playing Drury last night when I left and driving in today, settled on it. There’s still, as we build Greg up, there will still be days I’ll pick spots for him to be down and I thought today against Sale and that matchup is obviously a difficult one. So it felt like a good day for that and a good day to just try and load up with another good right-handed bat against one of the game’s best.”