The New York Yankees’ feel-good story of 2021 may be getting a sequel. In that season, the Yankees were two games out of a playoff spot on Aug. 12 when they tore off 13 straight wins – their longest winning streak since 1961 – to vault back into the race, ultimately capturing the second of what at that time were the two available American League Wild Card berths.
Their starting shortstop during that stretch, and for the final 28 games of the regular season, was Andrew Velazquez, an infielder who had spent most of his 10-year professional baseball career to that point in the minor leagues. But when Yankees starting shortstop Gleyber Torres went down with an injury, Velazquez was called up to take his place.
For Velazquez, it was better than a dream come true, and turned him into a Yankees folk hero. He grew up in the Bronx a diehard Yankee fan, and played high school baseball at Fordham Prepatory School in the Bronx. Now, he was living out his dream, playing for his beloved hometown team under the bright lights of Yankee Stadium.
With his parents watching in tears from the stands, Velazquez hit the first major league home run of his career during that winning streak, at Yankee Stadium against the Minnesota Twins on Aug. 21.
“It’s amazing, it’s amazing, it’s amazing,” his mother Margaret Maldonado-Velazquez told the New York Post at the time. “It’s surreal. I don’t know what other adjective to use. It’s overwhelming.” Velazquez had been signed as a free agent by the Yankees in January 2021, released on July 16, then signed again the following day before getting his big call-up.
More MLB: Do Not Count Red Sox Out of Roki Sasaki Signing Sweepstakes Yet Velzaquez was the starting shortstop in the 2021 AL Wild Card game, when the Yankees faced and ultimately lost to their arch-rival Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston. But when Velazquez was lifted for a pinch hitter in the sixth inning after flying out in his only at-bat, he saw his Yankees career come to an end. Until now.
n Friday, the Yankees once again signed Velazquez, now 30 years old, to a free agent contract, albeit a minor league one. But according to a report by Randy Miller of NJ.com, Velazquez will be given the opportunity in spring training to compete for a backup role on the Yankees’ bench, with Anthony Volpe holding a firm grasp on the starting shortstop job.
More MLB: Red Sox May ‘Get Involved’ After Dodgers DFA $2.5 Million Ex-No. 1 Prospect Velazquez is likely to start the season with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, the Yankees Triple-A affiliate, according to Miller’s report. The journeyman infielder who was selected out of Fordham Prep in the seventh round of the 2012 MLB draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks spent all of 2024 in the Atlanta Braves minor league system.
He played 125 games for the Los Angeles Angels in 2022, managing just a .196 batting average, but hitting nine home runs. He hit another two in 2023 for the Angels, when he batted .173 in 54 games. The last time Velazquez appeared in a big league game was Sept. 2, 2023, when he came in as a pinch runner and safely stole a base in the seventh inning for the Angels, who lost that game 2-1 to the Oakland A’s
