Report: Yankees acquiring Heliot Ramos from Giants

Domínguez became expendable for New York after picking up corner outfielder Heliot Ramos from the Giants at the trade deadline. The 23-year-old former top prospect heads back to the minors with Spencer Jones remaining up with the big club.

Ramos makes a ton of sense for the Yankees as a temporary stopgap while both Aaron Judge (rib) and Cody Bellinger (hamstring) are on the injured list, but he could wind up getting squeezed into a platoon role once they’re back. The 26-year-old corner outfielder has just nine round-trippers in 74 games this season after reaching the 20-homer plateau in each of the previous two years. He should benefit from leaving Oracle Park’s pitcher-friendly dimensions behind in favor of Yankee Stadium.

It’s not a bad return for San Francisco as they pivot towards more of a long-tern rebuilding project. Lalane was one of the hottest pitching prospects in baseball last month as he’s looked like an impactful starter again following a couple injury-marred seasons. He’s a worthwhile gamble for the Giants considering how starved they are for pitching in the minors.

The one hit would have been a triple in a scoreless game leading off the sixth, but Domínguez badly overslid the bag at third, despite it not being a close play, and was tagged out. He was credited with a double, but it probably would have been a better day for him if he had just struck out again instead. He’s hitting .226/.268/.340 in 56 plate appearances during the second half.

Ramos has played in just 70 games this season due to injuries and is slashing .267/.304/.436 with nine home runs, 34 RBI, and two steals. He has hit at least 20 home runs in two straight seasons but has yet to truly put together a great full season. Still, he is just 26 years old and is under team control through arbitration for three more years, so he would likely bring back a recent return if the Giants do decide to move him.

Ramos’s ninth-inning single off Andrew Vaughn gave him his third career four-hit game. After a nice first half of July, he had been cold in hitting .174 with one extra-base hit and a 15/1 K/BB in 48 plate appearances since the All-Star break. There’s at least a slim chance that he’ll be traded before the deadline, since while he fits in nicely with the Giants offensively, he doesn’t really offer anything defensively on a team that isn’t poised to have any first base/DH at-bats available for the next several years. Most likely, though, he’ll stay and finish out the year as the regular left fielder.

Anthony Volpe then singled in Domínguez to make it 2-0. Domínguez also went 1-for-4 with a walk in game one. He’s not embarrassing himself in hitting .232/.270/.394 in 164 plate appearances, but he’s still not showing much in the way of upside at the plate, and it’s hard to say what the Yankees could realistically expect to get for him if they make him available at the deadline.

Domínguez was solely responsible for the Yankees only run against Roki Sasaki and the Dodgers’ bullpen in this one. He smoked a double to right-center in the fourth inning that Andy Pages bobbled, which let Domínguez get to third. Then, Dalton Rushing let a forkball clank off his glove and Domínguez scampered home on the pass ball. He’s played everyday for a month straight and has four home runs and six stolen bases despite a lowly .679 OPS over his last 30 games.

Dominguez took a Zack Littell sinker out to right-center field to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead in the top of the fourth inning, then singled and scored in the ninth inning on Jazz Chisholm’s homer. The 23-year-old is now hitting .346/.393/.615 in his last seven games with two homers and a stolen base. He’s not exactly a must-roster at this point, but he’s a talented player getting a real chance with Aaron Judge out, and he may be getting hot at the right time.

This would have been a three-homer game in most ballparks and sort of was in San Francisco anyway; Ramos scored on the triple to right-center when the throw got past the third baseman and went into the dugout. Statcast says the triple, hit a projected 399 feet, would have been a homer in 29 parks. Ramos later had an opposite-field homer, hit 349 feet down the right field line, and a 110-mph, 434 foot bomb to left-center. Even his groundout tonight was hit 112 mph. Just a week ago, the Giants were being slow to activate Ramos from the IL because of concerns about how he’d fit in with Casey Schmitt playing the outfield. However, those went away with Matt Chapman getting hurt, and Ramos has hit .313 with four homers, eight RBI and eight runs scored in eight games since returning.