TAMPA — More than a week after she was hit in the face by a batted ball, Rachel Balkovec is doing better but still sidelined, according to Vice President of Player Development Kevin Reese.
“I saw her last night. She’s starting to feel better. I think she’s getting close to being back on the field,” Reese said.
She was hit in the face during a hitting drill in the batting cages at the Yankees’ Player Development site on March 22. Reese said she did not suffer a concussion but had some other medical issues.
Balkovec was scheduled to make history this spring as the first woman to manage a team in affiliated baseball. The Yankees announced she would manage the low Class-A Tarpons this season.
Reese would not say if she would be ready for the Tarpons’ season opener April 8.
“Just knowing Rachel the way I do, I don’t know. You know that the doctors have to sign off on some things and whatnot,” Reese said. “But I think she’s eager to get back out there.”
Balkovec joined the Yankees organization in November 2019 as a minor league hitting coach, becoming the first woman to be named to that role in the history of professional baseball. She was followed a few days later by Rachel Folden of the Chicago Cubs organization; there will be 19 women in uniform this baseball season.
Prior to joining the Yankees, Balkovec spent three seasons with the Houston Astros organization, serving as the strength and conditioning coach for Double-A Corpus Christi in 2018 and the Rookie-level GCL Astros in 2017. She also worked as the Latin American strength and conditioning coordinator from 2016-17. Prior to that, she was the minor league strength and conditioning coordinator for the St. Louis Cardinals from 2014-15.
Balkovec was also the first woman to be hired as a full-time strength and conditioning coach in affiliated baseball.
“All things considered, I feel very fortunate,” Balkovec said in a statement she released through the team. “The doctors have asked me to be smart about limiting my activities over the next several days, and I plan on following their guidance. As much as I already miss being around the players and staff, I do not anticipate this affecting my role and responsibilities for the regular season.”
TEAM BUILDING
The Yankees’ players spent over an hour before Wednesday’s game watching as front office and team support personnel tried out their jobs. With the players laughing, and sometimes cheering, they watched as baseball operations, analytics, public relations and clubhouse workers took batting practice, raced around the bases and tried to catch pop-ups.
“It was awesome. I’ve had a lot of guys, players, coaches, whoever talk about that that’s one of the best things we’ve done,” Aaron Boone said. “Usually we do a team building thing every spring. This year has been a little different with the quick turnaround. So this is something that’s kind of been coming together the last week or two and I thought it was great.
“I thought everybody out there over-delivered, took it really seriously. There was some pride in what they were doing,” the Yankee manager continued. “They were exceeding and I feel like our players loved it and ate it up and hopefully something that bonds us even a little bit more as a group, as a team, as an organization.”
THE FUTURE
Anthony Volpe and right-hander Hayden Wesneski were named the Yankees’ minor league Position Player of the Year and Pitcher of the Year.
The 20-year-old Volpe, who is rated the Yankees top prospect, hit .294/.423/.604 with 27 home runs, 86 RBI and 33 stolen bases in 109 combined games with Low-A Tampa and High-A Hudson Valley. The Yankees 2019 first-round pick out of New Jersey led all Yankees minor leaguers in on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS (1.027).
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Wesneski combined to go 11-6 with two complete games and a 3.25 ERA with 151 strikeouts and just 36 walks over 130.1 innings pitched in 25 games (24 starts) in 2021 with High-A Hudson Valley, Double-A Somerset and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The 24-year-old led all Yankees minor leaguers in wins, innings pitched and starts while ranking second in strikeouts, fourth in WHIP (1.12) and fifth in ERA. He was a sixth round of the 2019 First-Year Player Draft out of Sam Houston State University.
The annual awards are named after Kevin O’Brien Lawn — the son of longtime Yankees Vice President and Chief of Operations Jack Lawn—who passed away in 1999.