For the Yankees, Saturday’s 3-2 come-from-behind victory over the Red Sox at Fenway Park was highlighted by Isiah Kiner-Falefa‘s first home run in 103 games with the club and his successful execution of a safety squeeze in the ninth inning to drive in the winning run.
Earlier in the week, the mood was different after a fan tweeted a photo of the shortstop with the chilling caption, “IKF SHOT DEAD IN THE BRONX,” directly to his father.
A lot of Yankees fans aren’t happy with Kiner-Falefa, and some of them are demanding that the team bring up Oswald Peraza from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, where through 45 games, he’s hit .261, with 8 HR and 29 RBI.
Kiner-Falefa is hitting .271 with one homer, 36 RBIs, and a .640 OPS. He made 11 errors but has been solid after a rough start. Recently, IKF was criticized for a base-running mistake in a loss to the Seattle Mariners.
His offensive numbers are trending toward a below-average season (home runs excluded), but some fans are demanding more as the Yankees struggle in the second half of the season.
While Kiner-Falefa was hurt by the fan’s attack on his father, he ultimately decided to take responsibility for his own performance and admitted that the criticism would be less severe if he had been more effective on the field.
As a result of this incident, Fili Falefa slammed Jimmy “Jomboy” O’Brien and Jake Storiale of Jomboy Media and their Talkin’ Baseball podcast.
Eventually, the tweet was erased.
O’Brien acknowledged the father’s anger but assured him that Kiner-Falefa would never be the target of a personal attack from the company. No one at Jomboy Media was responsible for sending the message.
Kiner-Falefa claims his sole attention is on the performance at hand and that he would have preferred his father to remain silent on the issue.
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