Did chicken parm spell doom for Dillon Lawson? Anthony Volpe's turnaround may have been in spite of fired Yankees hitting coach

The Yankees fired Dillon Lawson following an abysmal offensive first half with Anthony Volpe, the former top prospect turned starting shortstop, experiencing an offensive turnaround over the last few weeks. That may have led to Dillon's demise.

Anthony Volpe earned the starting job in Spring Training and was pretty good to begin the season. He then experienced a really poor slump and Dillon Lawson was seemingly incapable of curing it.

Volpe's stats since the famous Chicken Parm meal! https://t.co/PFcaQ9xerC

Enter Austin Wells, a minor league prospect with the Yankees, and chicken parmesan. Exit Dillon Lawson shortly thereafter.

How chicken parm helped Anthony Volpe and hurt Dillon Lawson

By all accounts, Dillon Lawson was a somewhat ineffective hitting coach. When Aaron Judge got hurt, every single hitter on the offense slumped with very few exceptions.

Anthony Rizzo, Giancarlo Stanton, Josh Donaldson, DJ LeMahieu and more have been very poor in Judge's absence. Anthony Volpe was among them until he met with Austin Wells and had some home-cooked chicken parm.

He and Wells noticed something in Volpe's swing that evidently, Lawson couldn't see. He tweaked his stance as a result and it paid immediate dividends: he earned two doubles the following game.

Since then, he's been a revelation offensively. He's hitting .300 with 89 plate appearances since the infamous chicken parm date. He's mashing the ball, too, with a 150 wRC+ and a stunning .538 slugging percentage.

Over that span, he's earned 0.9 fWAR, compared to 0.5 fWAR from the previous few months. This is the player the Yankees thought they were getting, and Dillon Lawson wasn't able to coax him out.