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New York Yankees shortstop George Lombard Jr. (96) hits a single in the second inning as the New York Yankees play the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026, at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx, NY. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
Such as Lombard\u2019s well-struck single to the right side in the second inning, which was followed by Jones crushing an RBI double into right-center field that allowed a chance for two fresh and speedy legs to gallop around the bases.<\/p>\n
Such as Lombard\u2019s slow roller to third base that he turned into an infield single in the sixth, which was followed by Jones demolishing a 110.2 mph single in an inning where both would come around to score.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re good players, so hopefully they can continue to kind of entrench themselves as key pieces going forward,\u201d manager Aaron Boone said of the duo, who are good friends off the field and beginning to establish themselves on it.<\/p>\n
Jones simply being on the roster Sunday was significant.<\/p>\n
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/hits-rbi-double-driving-home-138310549.jpg\")
New York Yankees center fielder Spencer Jones (78) hits an RBI double driving home shortstop George Lombard Jr. (96) in the second inning against the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026, at Yankee Stadium in The Bronx. Jason Szenes for the NY Post<\/p>\n
As recently as a few days ago, there was curiosity whether the return of lefty-hitting outfielder Cody Bellinger would shove the other lefty-hitting outfielder back to the minors.<\/p>\n
But Ryan McMahon\u2019s IL stint changed the equation, and it was the just-called-up Max Schuemann who was sent to Triple-A Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre.<\/p>\n
Jones, who is up to a .743 OPS with seven home runs, continues to play his way into more playing time and now finds himself in a platoon role in right field with the righty-hitting Heliot Ramos.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s made good adjustments to the league,\u201d Boone said of Jones, who has hit safely in eight of his past 11 games and is slashing .307\/.357\/.564 in the span. \u201cAnd I feel like has a good understanding of his strengths and weaknesses, has a good idea of the opposing pitcher\u2019s strengths and weaknesses.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAnd I feel like for a young player, he\u2019s done a good job of making adjustments and applying his experience to help him get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Lombard, his glove might be slumping \u2014 he could not record any outs on a fourth-inning ground ball from Ernie Clement that might have been an inning-ending double play \u2014 but he has shown enough spectacular for some leeway while he also is showing he, too, might be figuring out major league pitching.<\/p>\n
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A prospect who took time to master every minor league level has not appeared to need much of a learning curve in the majors, now with five multi-hit games in his first 17 and batting .288 with a .755 OPS.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been excellent,\u201d Boone said of Lombard\u2019s bat. \u201cHe\u2019s another guy that\u2019s gotten a lot better on that side of the ball this year. He\u2019s grown a lot as a hitter.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knows the strike zone. \u2026 He\u2019s strong and has some power, but I think the hit-ability piece is getting better. We\u2019ve seen him in a number of situations, kind of just punch one to the right side, where the situation kind of calls for it, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s done a really good job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There might be a few surprising concerns about George Lombard Jr.\u2019s defense, the rookie shortstop committing a third…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[71821,20,9,11,10,321,44865,319],"class_list":["post-328175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-george-lombard-jr","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-spencer-jones","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}