{"id":101886,"date":"2025-06-10T16:09:05","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T20:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=101886"},"modified":"2025-06-10T16:09:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T20:09:05","slug":"yankees-giancarlo-stanton-starts-rehab-assignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/06\/10\/yankees-giancarlo-stanton-starts-rehab-assignment\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees Star Slugger Giancarlo Stanton Begins Rehab Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The last time Giancarlo Stanton stepped into the batter&#8217;s box for the New York Yankees, it was in last fall&#8217;s crushing World Series defeat. Now, almost eight months later, the former MVP is on his way back to the diamond after <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/03\/08\/yankees-giancarlo-stanton-elbow-injury-more-severe-than-thought\/\" target=\"_self\">battling tendonitis in both of his elbows<\/a>. The Somerset Patriots, New York&#8217;s Double-A affiliate, tweeted on Tuesday that Stanton is commencing his long-awaited rehab assignment with the team on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Yankees?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Yankees<\/a> have announced that Giancarlo Stanton is currently scheduled to commence an <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@MLB<\/a> rehab assignment with the Somerset Patriots today. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oXRFvWAqrx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/oXRFvWAqrx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Somerset Patriots (@SOMPatriots) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SOMPatriots\/status\/1932421451480481975?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">June 10, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Giancarlo Stanton Ready to Begin Rehab Assignment<\/h2>\n<h3>A Long, Unsteady Return<\/h3>\n<p>When the Yankees announced in February that there was no timetable for Stanton&#8217;s injury, it appeared that last year&#8217;s ALCS MVP could be out for most, if not the entirety, of the 2025 season. But, after long stretches of no news and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/05\/01\/yankees-claim-bryan-de-la-cruz-move-stanton-60-day-il\/\" target=\"_self\">very vague updates<\/a> concerning Stanton&#8217;s progress, it appears that he will be back in New York&#8217;s lineup in no time.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, what Stanton will do once he does return to the Bronx is not as certain. Though 2024 was a bit of a career renaissance for the 35-year-old being that it was his best season since 2021, concerns still exist regarding his abilities. From 2022-23, his batting average was .202 while racking up 261 strikeouts. In all fairness, he has hit at least 24 homers in every season since 2020, but in a Yankee lineup that is already overflowing with hot hitters, Stanton may have to once again prove that he still warrants the DH spot on a nightly basis.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_101896\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-101896\" style=\"width: 467px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-101896\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26081181_168400885_lowres-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"467\" height=\"311\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26081181_168400885_lowres-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26081181_168400885_lowres-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26081181_168400885_lowres-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26081181_168400885_lowres-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26081181_168400885_lowres-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/06\/USATSI_26081181_168400885_lowres.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 467px) 100vw, 467px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-101896\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">May 3, 2025; Bronx, New York, USA; New York Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge (99) talks with GIancarlo Stanton (27) after hitting a solo home run in the first inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>One Spot Too Many<\/h3>\n<p>When Stanton does return, it unfortunately means that Ben Rice, who has DH&#8217;ed in 39 of the Yankees&#8217; 64 games thus far, will have <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/04\/13\/yankees-must-find-spot-ben-rice-after-stanton-return\/\" target=\"_self\">no starting position<\/a>. With Paul Goldschmidt at first base, the Yanks could platoon the two hitters, but the team still needs Rice&#8217;s .825 OPS in the lineup as much as possible. This is a good problem to have, of course, but it would be a great problem for the team if Stanton continues to go on the tear that he went on to boost the Yanks to the Fall Classic last October.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: \u00a9 Brad Penner-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The last time Giancarlo Stanton stepped into the batter&#8217;s box for the New York Yankees, it was in last fall&#8217;s crushing World Series defeat. Now, almost eight months later, the former MVP is on his way back to the diamond after battling tendonitis in both of his elbows. The Somerset Patriots, New York&#8217;s Double-A affiliate, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5148,"featured_media":101895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1071,35],"tags":[28591,220],"class_list":["post-101886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-yankees","category-mlb","category-news","tag-ben-rice","tag-giancarlo-stanton"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101886"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101897,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101886\/revisions\/101897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}