B-team Bombers? Hardly. Backups bid to equal 2018 Yankees’ historic HR pace

“And, dude, we’re good.”

When it comes to the long ball so far this season, the Yankees certainly are. They currently have only three fewer homers than they did at this exact point last season. If they homer three times at Kansas City on Friday, they’ll be step-for-step with last year’s Bombers.

Four teams are currently outpacing the Yankees’ 80 homers, including Minnesota, which is leading the way with 98. Still, New York this year has made it a habit of hammering pitches.

“We just put our concentration and our focus to do damage, like we did [against Baltimore],” shortstop Gleyber Torres said.

With their injured list now overflowing with pitchers, including CC Sabathia’s addition early Thursday, the Yankees could stand to get several more offensive explosions. Until Sabathia returns from an anticipated week and a half of rest to let a cortisone shot settle, the Yankees will be bullpenning possibly their next two times through the rotation. All of that could heavily tax their pitching staff.

So, it will be up to the position players to pick up the slack, which is exactly what they did these past four days.

All week, Camden Yards was a veritable Yankees launching pad. In all, 13 home runs left Bombers bats in the four-game series. Had three more been struck off Orioles pitching, New York would have set a record for home runs hit in a single series in franchise history. At home against the White Sox in 2007, the Yankees hit 15 bombs in a three-game set.

Still, this marked just the fifth time in Yankees history that they hit at least 13 homers in a road series.

“These guys, the focus each and every day is on the game and playing winning baseball, and everyone kind of pulling their weight, and the mantra of come in and do your job,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “They’ve really taken to that, and a lot of them really well.”

The star of the past week was Torres, who had multi-homer games Monday and Wednesday before being kept out of the starting lineup Thursday. He didn’t have much of a rest day, though. With two outs in the ninth, Torres and fellow O’s killer Gary Sanchez, came up to pinch hit.

Orioles reliever Mychal Givens kept both in the ballpark this time, though, allowing Torres to draw a clutch tie-game walk before giving up a single to Sanchez. By the time Hicks came up two batters later with a chance to blow the game wide open, Torres and Sanchez were in scoring position after starting a two-out bases-loaded rally.

“You always like when they’re in the lineup, but to have them sitting over there in that spot was nice,” Boone said of both young hitters. “And the fact that they were ready. It’s not always easy for guys that are regulars like that that have been sitting over there all day.”

“It’s crazy how guys come up [from Triple-A], hit a lot of homers. It’s crazy, man. I don’t think the league has really adjusted to some of the players yet, so you’ve got a ton of guys with a lot of talent, and they are making adjustments if they were pitched different than they were before. And, dude, we’re good.”

Clint Frazier

Combined, Torres and Sanchez have hit 19 home runs off the Orioles this season. That’s only 11 fewer than the entire Miami Marlins team has hit against every opponent it has faced this year. Of the 12 homers Torres has hit this season, 10 have come against the Orioles. Of those 10, five came in the three games he started this week in Baltimore.

After hitting his 12th homer of the season Thursday, first baseman Luke Voit joked about Torres being given an off day, saying: “Gleyber’s letting us hit — or maybe Aaron’s letting the rest of us hit home runs.”

While Sanchez’s 15 homers in an IL-affected season leads the team, Torres and Voit each have 12. Frazier has nine and Brett Gardner — who had 12 homers all of last season — is next on the list with seven. DJ LeMahieu and Mike Tauchman have four homers apiece. Thairo Estrada and Gio Urshela, two players who began the season at Triple-A, have three and two homers, respectively.

“I’m happy for all these guys that are getting these chances, because sometimes, a lot of these guys don’t get chances,” Voit said.

Voit was one of those unknown players who was looking for a break last season. After a brief stay in the minors following his trade-deadline arrival in the Bronx last summer, Voit went on to homer 14 times in the final month and a half last season. Only Milwaukee’s Christian Yelich had more home runs (15) within that stretch.

When spring training started, it wasn’t a given that Voit would be the Yankees’ Opening Day starter at first base. But he earned the job after a competition with Greg Bird, who later got sidelined with a bout of plantar fasciitis.

Before the wave of injuries set in, LeMahieu was viewed as a complementary piece, playing a rover type role to help give some of his fellow infielders occasional relief. Like Estrada and Urshela, Frazier began the year in the minors.

“Even though we have some guys that aren’t the main starters, they’re still able to come up here and do damage, too,” Hicks said. “The guys that we have are the same as the starters we’re missing; guys that hit homers. They like to drive the ball a lot.

“It also helps to have guys that are extremely hot.”