Yankees invite 10-year-old bullied girl to clubhouse: 'Hopefully we can make a difference'

The Yankee clubhouse may be getting a new visitor.

The viral story of a bullied 10-year-old girl from Pennsylvania named Cassidy inspired the team to take a stand.

The Yankees put together a video featuring CC Sabathia, Brett Gardner and Giancarlo Stanton and many others supporting Cassidy and denouncing bullying. Aaron Boone said Thursday that they hope to get her to a game to meet some players.

"All of guys were really excited to be a part of that," Boone said. "To stand up for something like that was an easy call for us as an organization, for our players. Hopefully we can make a difference not only in this situation, but across the country. It's not OK."

A Facebook video of Cassidy explaining her situation at John Adams Elementary School was viewed at least 270,000 times as of Thursday evening.

"To see our guys stand up and have a role in that is not surprising because I know all those guys in that room and the character in that room," Boone said. "It's something that we were glad that would could play a small role in helping a bad situation out."

Stanton hits cleanup

For the first time all season, the Yankees' slumping slugger moved out the 3-hole. Stanton slid down to cleanup on Thursday with the Blue Jays sending out a tough right-handed starter in Aaron Sanchez. Boone insisted that he isn't considering sending Stanton to the bottom third of the lineup, even with the outfielder sporting a .197 average entering Thursday night.

"It's more our personnel versus their pitching and their bullpen, that kind of thing," Boone said. "That factors more into it. I'm not ready to move him down, down in the order. I still want him surrounded by impact guys. As I think I said after the game the other day, you move him down and all of a sudden he's one good at-bat from getting locked back in. Then you're in a situation where it's a blatant pitch around. I think he's too close to hopefully finding that feeling where he can lock in so I have no intention of moving him down any further."

Briefs

Tyler Austin had a hearing on Thursday for his appeal of a five-game suspension. Austin, who was involved in a brawl in Boston, didn't go into details about the hearing, only saying that a decision could come down in the next week.

Tommy Kahnle will be shut down for about 10 days and could miss a few weeks with tendonitis in his right bicep. As for other injured Yankees, Clint Frazier and Brandon Drury both took batting practice and did defensive work on Thursday. Greg Bird ran on the field, hit and had a catch.

Sonny Gray (1-1, 6.92) and Marco Estrada (1-1, 4.24) are the expected starters for Friday night's game in the Bronx.

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