New York's left fielder will have face his former team on Friday night.
Verdugo spoke about the pending matchup between the Yankees and Red Sox, and said there's no bad blood between he and Red Sox manager Alex Cora, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com:
“Despite previous comments, Verdugo insists that his relationship with Cora is not a negative one and that at least on his end, more has been made of a perceived feud than it should have been.
‘I think it was overblown, for sure,” Verdugo said. “Everybody made it that, like, we can’t even be around each other. But really, he just wanted the best for me. We were grinding and going through some struggles. Sometimes, tempers flare when you’re not playing that good. It’s the kind of stuff that happens. Realistically, I’ve got nothing against him as a person, a father and a friend. We’re still all good in those regards.'”
Last December, the Yankees acquired Verdugo in exchange for pitchers Richard Fitts, Greg Weissert and Nicholas Judice.
Verdugo joined the Red Sox with a significant amount of fanfare as the main piece of the package Boston got in the blockbuster trade that sent Mookie Betts and David Price to the Dodgers before the 2020 season.
The next four seasons brought plenty of drama, including Verdugo playing a key role on the team’s surprise run to the 2021 ALCS, and then, inconsistency in 2022 and 2023 along with public issues with Cora after the Red Sox manager challenged the outfielder to step his game up.
Alex Verdugo winning with Yankees as part of monster outfield
So far in his first season with the Yankees, Verdugo has been very solid. Through 262 plate appearances, he has a slash line of .261/.317/.432, 61 hits, 34 RBI and eight home runs.
Those are respectable numbers, but in conjunction with Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, the trio make up possibly the best outfield trio in baseball.
Soto, who is dealing with a minor forearm injury, is hitting .318 with 17 home runs and 53 RBIs with an OPS of 1.027.
Judge, after a slow start to the season, has come on like gangbusters for the Yankees after a May output that saw him win American League Player of the Month. So far in 2024, the Yankees slugger is batting .305 with 24 home runs, 59 RBIs, and a gargantuan 1.139 OPS.
Behind their star outfield, the Yankees are an American League best 46-21 on the season. They lead the second-place Baltimore Orioles by 2.5 games in the AL East.
