Kyle Higashioka had started to lose time to Jose Trevino in their platoon because of his offense. It has not affected their close working relationship. In fact, Sunday, it was after Trevino gave  Higashioka some advice on his swing that finally found the power the Yankees had been expecting.

In his 101st plate appearance of the season, Higashioka hit his first home runs of the season in the Yankees 18-4 blowout of the Cubs at the Stadium.

“I mean, I’ve been I’ve been grinding all year trying to look for that adjustment to get back to where I know I could be, but I actually got some good advice from Trevi in the in the dugout after my first at-bat and for some reason, it just clicked everything into place,” Higashioka said with a laugh. “So I want to kind of give credit to my man Trevi.”

Higashioka said Trevino noticed something with his lower half that helped him adjust.

He was always considered a defense-first catcher, but was predicted to hit with power in the big leagues. After hitting 10 home runs last season, Higashioka only has an OPS of .505 this season. He’s slashing .172/.225/.280 in 93 at-bats this season.

Trevino has been hitting .440 over his last 18 games and had been earning more playing time. In fact, Trevino was a late scratch because of a back issue Sunday.

But that has not affected their relationship.

“Both of our main goals are to just win every single game that we play. So whether we’re playing or on the bench we’re trying to help each other to have as good a game possible defensively and offensively,” Higashioka said. “So that we can win as many games as possible and at the end of the year, we should be where we want to be.”

Higashioka’s second home run was off Cubs first baseman Frank Schwindel on a 35.1-mile an hour lobbed pitch. It was the slowest pitch ever to have a home run hit on it in MLB history

“That was pretty funny,” Higashioka said.

TAILON TERRIFIC

Jameson Taillon recorded his major-lead lead-tying seventh win of the season Sunday. He allowed three earned runs on seven hits and one walk. He has allowed one walk or fewer in each of his 12 starts this season and 14 straight dating back to Sept. 28, 2021, the longest such streak in franchise history.

Sunday, Taillon was disappointed that he didn’t get beyond five innings; it was a long five innings because of all the offense.

“It’s interesting. Definitely waiting in between innings is probably the most impactful thing,” Taillon said of pitching in such a lopsided game. “Just making sure you’re ready to go for the next inning and on your game. It was kind of fighting a battle in my head. Sometimes it’s like, man, should I throw a 3-2 changeup here or should I just challenge you guys with heaters? I still have a job to do to put up zeros but you know, you also want to be efficient and get through innings as quick as possible. So it’s kind of playing like a back and forth game in my head.”

SUNDAY SCRATCHES

Trevino and Gleyber Torres were scratched from Sunday’s Yankees lineup. The catcher has a back issue and Torres felt ill before the game.

“He had actually played with it last night and obviously played very well with it, but he’s got a little back thing going on and came in with it still lingering today,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Trevino. “So just kind of with the (scheduled) off day tomorrow ahead of 20 in a row, it  isn’t something I wanted to mess with ….He’s available too. I’ll treat it like a normal day where he’s on the bench. So pinch hitting situations and things like that, he’s good to go but just something we didn’t want to mess with.”

Torres was nauseous Sunday morning. Boone said they were not concerned at this time it had anything to do with COVID.

The second baseman homered in Friday and Saturday night’s game. His homer Saturday night was his 12th of the season, matching his total for the 2021 and 2020 seasons combined.

LOAISIGA BACK ON TRACK

Right-handed reliever Jonathan Loaisiga, who is on the injured list with right shoulder inflammation, returned from his trip home to Nicaragua and the Yankees are hopeful he will be able to begin a throwing program on Monday.

“I was just in there with him in the training room. He’s kind of going through a whole physical assessment just to make sure he’s good to go again, because obviously we haven’t had hands on him in a few days,” Boone said.  “But the hope is he goes through normal workout and everything today. And then starts his throwing program tomorrow.”Loaisiga had to return to Nicaragua unexpectedly to deal with a personal issue.

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