A whiff of skepticism about slumping Giancarlo Stanton

We knew Giancarlo Stanton could hit. What we didn’t know was whether he could hit in New York.

Would the media get to him? The fans? The cold? The traffic? The noise? The pinstripes? The Red Sox?

These were questions that were supposed to be resolved over a long season, not in the first week of April. But here we are, at the first crossroads in the reigning National League MVP’s welcome to the Big Apple, and it is uglier than anyone’s worst-case scenario.

On the field, that is, where he hit new lows Sunday with an 0-for-7 outing in a dispiriting 8-7, 12-inning loss to the Orioles in which he struck out five times, tying the franchise record for the second time in less than a week.

Off it, Stanton has kept it together, facing tough questions from reporters, including about another day of booing from chilly, cranky fans.

Did he expect the fans to be as hard on him as they have been?

“Sure, yeah,” he said.

But doesn’t it sting a little?

“No,” he said. “I mean, they’re not going to cheer for that, so what do you expect?”

Fair point.

Stanton announced his arrival in style in Toronto on March 29, hitting two home runs in the opener. But his average has cratered to .167, and in six home games, he is 3-for-28 with a home run and 16 strikeouts.

“Just have to look at it as a bad week,” he said. “The season’s much longer than a week. A couple of good games and I could turn it around and help us win.”

It would be helpful for those games to come in Boston, starting Tuesday. But anything would be better than the indignities he suffered on Sunday.

The one time he hit the ball hard, he lined into a double play. With a runner on second and two outs in the 10th inning, Buck Showalter walked Aaron Judge intentionally to get to Stanton, who grounded into a forceout. Asked when the last time the batter in front of him had been walked on purpose, Stanton said, “I don’t know.”

Aaron Boone chalked it up to Showalter making a situational decision more so than one based on which batters were involved. Yeah, sure.

In the 12th, with the Yankees down a run, Stanton struck out with runners on first and second to end the game.

“Everybody goes through it, but we have his back,” Judge said. “That’s the great thing about this team.”

Given his track record, this could well be a minor glitch. But again: Whether he is a fit for the big stage was, is and will remain a question until he answers it.

Boone and Stanton cited his relative lack of familiarity with AL pitchers as a factor. Boone also mentioned Stanton’s timing being off. “That’s just something you have to deal with as a big-leaguer, and I feel quite certain that he will, and before long it will be an old story,” Boone said of Stanton’s week that wasn’t.

Regarding the booing, Boone said, “I don’t think he just came here on a whim. I think he’s very prepared for a big change . . . The bottom line is when he’s right with his timing, it’ll start to happen in a big way, and once that happens, he’ll get rolling and be a dominant player.”

Boone said hitters do take slumps home with them, but he said Stanton knows what he can do. “So I think once he does lock in that feeling, that feeling we look for as hitters, I don’t worry about it anymore. He’ll explode.”

Stanton promised to go to the video and “figure it out.”

“You just have to battle,” he said. “If you don’t feel right, find a way to battle and try to put the ball in play, which hasn’t worked out. But it’ll be all right.”

We’re waiting.

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.