Yankees’ Aaron Boone tries explaining Giancarlo Stanton’s slump

Yankees manager Aaron Boone tries explaining why star slugger Giancarlo Stanton was hitting .136 in September going into Thursday’s game against the Red Sox.

NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton was in the midst of a midseason surge reminiscent of the one he rode to the National League MVP award in 2017.

Then the bottom fell out.

He hasn’t really been the same since.

After hitting .286 on Aug. 22, Stanton had seen his batting average drop 25 points, to .261, in 25 games, going into Thursday’s game with the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.

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In September, Stanton had hit .136 with a homer and five RBI in 15 games.

Overall, Stanton was hitting has 34 homers, 89 RBI and a .829 OPS

For weeks, the 28-year-old has been dealing with a left hamstring strain.

Manager Aaron Boone said that’s not affecting the slugger at the plate.

“I don’t think it’s much of a factor of all,” Boone said. “He’s obviously been a guy we’ve leaned on heavily and there’s no question this time of the year when you’ve played every day there’s a fatigue factor, but I honestly don’t think it’s been much of a factor with him swinging the bat. It’s something that he’s dealt with. While I think there’s been times in the year when it’s been a little bit sore, he’s been at his best at the place. So I don’t think there’s necessarily that correlation.”

But is it sore?

“I don’t have any real trepidation of throwing him out in the field now,” Boone said of Stanton, who’s mostly DH-ed since suffering the injury sometime in early August or late July. “Obviously he played out there (Wednesday) night. More often than now I’ve been using him at DH, but that’s just trying to preserve him because he’s been kind of that one guy that we haven’t really given days off.”

Rather, Boone said, he thinks Stanton’s timing is off.

“Every hitter strives to be on time and be in that good position to hit and I just think he’s had a little bit of a hard time being on time consistently and the result is sometimes you don’t swing at pitches you should be or you’re a little behind on pitches because you’re not on time,” Boone said. “And that’s what he’s really battling the find the good timing and when he does, and I believe he will, then it gets really impactful.”

Brendan Kuty may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @BrendanKutyNJ. Find NJ.com Yankees on Facebook.