Giancarlo Stanton is trying too hard for cheap home runs at Yankee Stadium

The short porch in right field at Yankee Stadium appears to be in the head of struggling MVP Giancarlo Stanton.

Getting a chance to play 81 games in Yankee Stadium was supposed to help, not hurt 2017 NL MVP Giancarlo Stanton’s hopes of becoming the first player to hit 60 home runs since the beginning of steroid testing. Instead, the short porch in right field, where easy outs in other stadiums manage to find the seats, appears to be playing mind games with the big slugger. Stanton is suffering through one of the worst starts in the league and has already made some unwanted history with two hitless, five-strikeout games in the first 10 days of the year.

Popping easy fly balls into the seats at Yankee Stadium has allowed left-handed hitters like Curtis Granderson and Didi Gregorius to inflate their power numbers to elite levels. Gregorius is one of the leaders in the launch-angle revolution, selling out almost completely to hit the ball in the air at home. Granderson, who has homered once every 13.6 at-bats in the new stadium, has left the yard just once every 22.6 ABs in MLB’s other parks.

Hitting at Yankee Stadium is supposed to do great things for power hitters, but it hasn’t worked that way so far for Stanton.

Five-strikeout games aside, Stanton has been awful so far for the Yankees. He is hitting just .167/.271/.429 with three home runs — two of which came on Opening Day — and an MLB-leading 20 strikeouts. A neat 42 percent of his trips to the plate have ended in a strikeout, and Stanton is hitting just .107 at home with 16 strikeouts in 30 plate appearances.

What’s to blame for the unexpected struggles? After all, Stanton was supposed to lead the Yankees lineup to historic power production and well over 100 wins. It’s too early to really make any conclusions about the fate of the team, but it is troubling that Stanton has looked so lost at the plate.

Since we’ve just laid out how ugly it has been so far this season for Stanton, let’s rewind and watch all 59 of his home runs from 2017.

Impressive. And here’s the spray chart.

Stanton does have power to all fields, but most of his home runs were pulled. His contact above was laid over Yankee Stadium, and it does not look like he would have picked up many additional bombs to right field hitting in the bandbox. Stanton just hits the ball a long way, and he doesn’t need any help.

Now, watch all five of Stanton’s strikeouts from last Sunday against the Baltimore Orioles.

Stanton started using a slightly closed-off stance at the plate in the middle of last year, but it looks even more exaggerated in the early going this season. The closed stance does work well for him because his wrists are so quick that it does not really prevent him from lashing inside pitches. The problem comes for Stanton when he zeroes in on hitting the ball to right field. Going the other way is not a strength of his, and it is even less of a strength when he tries to force it. Contact to right field should only come for a power hitter when the pitch calls for it. Otherwise, Stanton’s eyes and hands are trying to do one thing, but pitchers are busting the ball in under his hands.

These slumps are not unheard of for Stanton, who has already picked up two more strikeouts in the early going of Monday night’s game in Boston against Chris Sale. He hit .202/.287/.508 for a 32-game stretch in 2015 with 50 strikeouts. There was a similar stretch in 2016 where Stanton struck out 58 times in 36 games with a .621 OPS. No matter how ugly the slumps are, however, he always finds a way to break out eventually.

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It’s still early, and there’s no reason to give up on Stanton — let alone boo him. What he needs is to get back to basics at the plate and forget about hitting the ball into the right-field bleachers. Stanton is at his best when he is pulling frozen ropes into the left-field power alleys. Power to right field will come, but it has to come naturally.