In chilly home opener, Didi Gregorius brings the heat for the Yankees

Whether he is deep in the humid heart of Texas in July or sweltering in Kansas City in August, Gregorius takes his position at shortstop for the New York Yankees wearing long sleeves.

On Tuesday, Gregorius found himself in conditions for which he was appropriately equipped. With those long sleeves — and a booming bat — nobody looked more comfortable in the drizzling, dank and bone-chilling weather than Gregorius, who belted two home runs and drove in a career-high eight runs in the Yankees’ 11-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.

Gregorius’s home runs gave the Yankees a win despite another hiccup from their bullpen, a five-strikeout performance from Giancarlo Stanton in his Yankee Stadium debut and dreadful conditions for their home opener, which was postponed by snow on Monday.

Stanton was booed after his last strikeout, but he only has to look to Gregorius for proof that one does not have to be defined by a grim Bronx debut.

Gregorius was also booed, and jeered with chants of “Der-ek Je-ter,” when he was thrown out trying to steal third when his team trailed by several runs late in the 2015 season opener.

He has since developed into one of the best shortstops in baseball and a beloved figure in the Bronx. On Tuesday, he was showered only with love by the fans who braved the elements. Gregorius received a curtain call after each of the home runs, and the crowd chanted “Di-di” after he turned in two slick defensive plays.

“Fans are always going to boo you, and the reason they boo you is because they want you to do good,” said Gregorius, who also hit two homers in the Yankees’ Game 5 win over Cleveland in a divisional series last fall. “It’s not because they hate you.”

He added of Stanton: “It’s a bad day today, but tomorrow if he gets five home runs, everybody’s going to forget about it.”

For most everyone at the stadium beside Gregorius, it was a miserable day for baseball.

The temperature at the first pitch, which was delayed 14 minutes by the weather, was 40 degrees. There were perhaps 10,000 fans in the stadium by then, and most congregated under the overhangs of the upper decks. Those who did not have shelter sat under umbrellas or wore ponchos in the mist.

The wretched weather prompted the Yankees to skip the traditional pregame introductions of the teams along the baselines and scrap plans to unfurl an enormous American flag in the outfield. The ceremonial first pitches — thrown by two members of the 1978 World Series champions, Mickey Rivers and Bucky Dent — were performed in hurried fashion.

Once the game began, it occasionally looked as though the players were throwing a spherical ice cube. Third baseman Brandon Drury, wearing a balaclava under his cap, fielded a routine grounder from Matt Duffy in the third inning and threw far wide of first baseman Tyler Austin.

Yankees center fielder Brett Gardner opted to forgo long sleeves, so he was unencumbered in the third inning when he caught Kevin Kiermaier’s fly ball and threw out the former Yankee Rob Refsnyder at the plate. It kept the score tied at 1-1 — at least until the bottom of the inning when Gregorius turned on a fastball from Rays starter Chris Archer and lashed a three-run homer down the right-field line.

The Rays drew even in the sixth against relievers Jonathan Holder and Tommy Kahnle, tying the score at 4-4 when pinch-hitter Denard Span laced Kahnle’s two-out, 0-2 change-up into the right-field corner for a two-run double. It was the third consecutive game that a member of the Yankees’ vaunted bullpen had been unable to hold a lead.

The Yankees nearly regained the advantage in the bottom of the inning, but Carlos Gomez leapt at the right-field wall to snatch a home run away from Tyler Wade.

The catch only prolonged the inevitable. Austin looped a double into the left-field corner to begin the bottom of the seventh. Gardner bunted him to third, but Austin scored and Gardner took second when Duffy’s throw bounced past Miller, the second baseman who was covering first.

Aaron Judge blooped a single to center and, after Stanton struck out, Gregorius ripped an 0-2 fastball from reliever Austin Pruitt into the second deck in right field to put the Yankees ahead by 8-4. After Stanton struck out for the final time, Gregorius drove in another two runs with a bloop double to left in the eighth.

“He picked me up today,” Stanton said. “That’s what a cleanup hitter does — cleans up the garbage in front of him.”

The wet, wintry weather had threatened to douse plans for Aaron Boone’s family and friends, who had come to New York to attend his first home game as manager. His wife, children and parents — his father Bob had managed the Cincinnati Reds and Kansas City Royals — had made the trip along with his brothers Bret and Matt. So, too, did eight or nine friends from his home in Scottsdale, Arizona.

One or two of those friends had to return, and his nephew, Jake Boone, a freshman at Princeton, couldn’t miss class two days in a row. And if the game had not been played Tuesday, all of the assembled acquaintances would have had to leave without seeing a game.

Whenever inclement weather threatens to delay or postpone Yankees games, all eyes in the organization turn to owner Hal Steinbrenner, a licensed pilot and a self-professed weather nerd. So, Steinbrenner paid a visit to Boone’s office on Tuesday morning.

“He’s one of our go-to guys for anything weather,” Boone said. “He was saying that the next time they really get together and feel like they have a strong opinion or strong feeling one way or the other is that 3 o’clock spot.”

It was still raining as 3 p.m. rolled round, but Steinbrenner must have seen enough on the apps that he uses to analyze weather patterns to suggest the rain would cease enough to get the game in.

In the end, it proved a worthwhile decision — if not for those who endured the miserable conditions, then at least for Gregorius who, long sleeves and a thunderous bat at the ready, came well prepared.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.