Sent Down, Called Back, Then a Grand Slam: Anthony Volpe Answers the Yankees in One Night

Baseball has a way of making a player disappear quickly.

One month, you are the starting shortstop for the New York Yankees. The next, somebody else has your position and you are riding buses in Triple-A, unsure when another opportunity in the Bronx will arrive.

Anthony Volpe spent the past several weeks living that reality.

On Thursday night, he returned to Yankee Stadium. By the end of it, the crowd was calling him back out of the dugout.

Volpe went 3-for-4 with a career-high five RBIs and a grand slam, helping the Yankees beat the Colorado Rockies 10–3 and complete a three-game sweep. It was his first Major League appearance since early August, when rookie George Lombard Jr. replaced him as New York’s starting shortstop.

When New York sent Volpe to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, there was no guarantee that his stay would be temporary. Lombard represented another option at shortstop, while Volpe had struggled through 56 Major League games this season after offseason shoulder surgery.

So Volpe went back to work.

Quietly, his season began changing.

He hit .264 with a .906 OPS, 11 home runs, 26 RBIs and 10 stolen bases in 37 Triple-A games. Over his final six games before being recalled, he hit .524.

Then an opportunity arrived from an unfortunate place.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. suffered a right thumb injury and was placed on the injured list, opening a spot in New York’s infield. The Yankees called Volpe back, but they weren’t simply handing him his old position. He returned as a second baseman, a position he had never played in a Major League game.

Volpe didn’t need long to make himself relevant again.

His first important moment wasn’t the grand slam. It came much earlier.

Volpe drove in a run with a second-inning single and added another hit in the sixth. By the time he walked to the plate in the seventh inning, his return was already going well.

Then the entire night changed.

New York was in the middle of a six-run inning when Volpe faced Colorado reliever Jimmy Herget with two outs and the bases loaded.

Herget threw a 1-1 sinker.

Volpe sent it into the right-field seats.

Grand slam.

The Yankees suddenly led 10–2.

Volpe’s first Major League home run since May 26 had arrived with three runners standing in front of him. Statcast measured the ball at 104 mph off the bat and 352 feet.

Then came something that couldn’t be measured by Statcast.

The crowd wanted him back.

Volpe emerged from the dugout for a curtain call. A player who had left Yankee Stadium without knowing when he would return was standing in front of its fans again, this time listening to them celebrate him.

The story mattered beyond Volpe.

New York improved to 84–62, moving within three games of Tampa Bay in the American League East while strengthening its position in the AL wild-card race.

Luis García Jr. reached another milestone during the victory, hitting his 30th home run of the season for the first 30-homer campaign of his career. Rookie Spencer Jones collected three hits and drove in two runs, while Max Fried struck out seven and allowed one run across 3⅓ innings.

But this was always going to be remembered as Volpe’s night.

There is an important difference between a great comeback game and a completed comeback.

Volpe still doesn’t have a guaranteed everyday role. Chisholm is expected back, Lombard has taken over at shortstop, and the Yankees are trying to win a division race. Their roster decisions will not be made on emotion alone.

One grand slam cannot erase the struggles that sent Volpe to Triple-A.

But baseball careers aren’t always repaired all at once.

Sometimes a player simply needs another opportunity to make the next decision more difficult.

Volpe did exactly that.

He returned at a different position. He drove in five runs. He hit a grand slam. And when he finished circling the bases, Yankee Stadium gave him something that seemed much less certain when he left the Bronx in August.

A reason to come out of the dugout one more time.

The Yankees still have decisions to make about Anthony Volpe.

After one night back, ignoring him just became a lot harder.