Royals showcase Mike Moustakas for Yankees at 1st base | What it means

Kansas City Royals infielder Mike Moustakas is hitting .254 with 17 homers and 56 RBI in 85 games through Sunday. He is candidate to be traded before the July 31, 2018 (7/31/18) non-waiver deadline. The Yankees could have interest in Moustakas as a first baseman, with Greg Bird struggling at the plate.

TORONTO — The Yankees had a scout in Kansas City over the weekend and Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas made his fourth career start at first base on Saturday and then his fifth on Sunday.

“That may not be a coincidence,” Jon Morosi of MLB Network and Fox Sports tweeted.

It wasn’t.

We’re hearing it was Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, as always, doing his due diligence to get a fresh scouting report on an available veteran who is a long shot to become a player of interest for them before the July 31 trade deadline.

That’s it.

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No, this scout watching the Red Sox sweep a weekend series from the hapless Royals most certainly wasn’t a strong hint that the Yankees are thinking hard about upgrading at first base from Greg Bird, who is hitting just .202 with five homers and nine RBI in 35 games since returning on May 15 from spring foot surgery.

The Yanks, as a matter of fact, still are high on the often-injured, slow-starting Bird and they’re still convinced he’s going to be an impact player in their lineup before long.

As for Moustakas, he’s simply a possibility in case Bird has a terrible July or gets hurt again.

Moustakas is intriguing, as he’s a left-handed bat who hit 38 homers last season. Plus, he’s making just $6.5 million this year playing on a one-year contract that will lead into a second winter in a row of free agency.

And while Moustakas also has some pretty decent stats – he was hitting .254 with 17 homers and 56 RBI in 85 games through Sunday – his .778 OPS wasn’t much better than Bird’s .725.

Also, Moustakas has been dealing with back spasms, which means you can’t count on him this year to be in the lineup, plus he’s been in a major funk of late with a .204 average in his last 30 games.

So look for the Yanks to pass on Moustakas, stick with Bird and attack the trade-deadline the way that they’ve planned all along.

Thus, they’re still hunting a veteran starting pitcher (possibly Blue Jays All-Star lefty J.A. Happ, but likely not Rangers ace Cole Hamels) and a lefty reliever to replace Chasen Shreve (possibly Padres closer Brad Hand or Orioles closer Zach Britton).

Meantime, Bird still has a firm grip on the starting first base job.

“I’ve always felt like he’s close to being back to where we want him to be, just because of the strike zone discipline he does have, because of some of the balls where it’s like he’s on that,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said on Sunday. “But we’re still waiting for him to kind of take off a little bit.

“I keep saying it, but when he’s right and rolling we feel like he’s so important to our lineup and a dynamic offense player. I feel like he’s been close all along. Hopefully he continues to push through and really get over the top.”

Randy Miller may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.