The Yankees announced that infielder DJ LeMahieu is headed to the 10-day injured list, retroactive to September 5, with toe inflammation on his right foot. Miguel Andújar has been recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to take his spot on the active roster. New York also reinstated starter Nestor Cortes from the IL after optioning out Deivi García following last night’s ballgame.
LeMahieu has been out of action since Sunday dealing with the toe discomfort. He’s battled the issue off and on for a few weeks, and he’ll need at least another week off to recover. It certainly appears as if the discomfort has had an effect on LeMahieu’s performance, as he’s struggled mightily of late. Going back to the start of August 1, he’s hitting .187/.254/.243 through 119 trips to the plate. That’s obviously nowhere close to the .285/.389/.424 line he carried through the end of July. Precisely when LeMahieu started hurting isn’t clear, but he’s seemingly been operating at less than full strength.
The organization hasn’t provided a specific timetable for his return, although the fact that they’ve waited a few days to put him on the IL could suggest they don’t anticipate it being a long-term absence. New York also just lost Anthony Rizzo to the IL, though, leaving them particularly short-handed on the infield. They called up former Ranger first baseman Ronald Guzmán this week, and he started one of the club’s games in their doubleheader against the Twins yesterday. Utilityman Marwin González got the nod there in the nightcap, and he’s back in the lineup at first tonight. Gleyber Torres, Josh Donaldson (who’s currently on paternity leave), Isiah Kiner-Falefa, rookie Oswald Peraza and Andújar round out the healthy infield mix at the moment.
The silver lining of today’s news is that the Yankees welcome Cortes back from his own IL stint. He only missed a bit more than two weeks with a groin issue. The southpaw owns a 2.68 ERA through 131 innings on the season. He’ll make his 24th start of the year tonight against Minnesota.
The Yankees enter play Thursday holding a five-game lead over the Rays in the AL East. They’re five games back of the Astros for the top record in the Junior Circuit, seemingly setting themselves up to secure the #2 seed in the postseason. A second-half swoon has knocked the club off its once-historic pace, but they’ve still got a strong chance of securing a first-round bye.
Joe says...
It’s a spring training lineup they’re running out there right now.
YankeesBleacherCreature
At least Nasty Nestor is back to help blunt my pain.
DR2020
Its worse Joe. What could go wrong?
Yankee Clipper
What’s concerning is that the Yankees left DJL out there despite knowing how poorly he was performing because he was hurting. It hurt DJ and the team far more than his presence helped them. It was clear he couldn’t swing off his back leg.
Boone’s excuse to the media was the sitting him for a short IL stint wouldn’t heal it, but allowing it to heal all winter would. So, I guess playing him hurt and performing terribly was the only logical solution, right….right?
Joe says...
And to think, the Yankees had a real manager working for the YES Network and let him get away to Queens.
Yankee Clipper
Ugh, bring back Bucky!
DR2020
He didn’t meet the qualifications, he didn’t come with strings attached to his back
Mickey777
Amazing number of key injuries at the same time. LeMahieu, Carpenter, Rizzo, Benintendi, and Stanton on the offensive side and King, Severino, Green, and Britton on the pitching side. I didn’t even mention Bader, Chapman, Gil, or Donaldson. Teams need to prepare for injuries but pretty tough to have this many at the same time!
Mikenmn
To a certain extent, roster construction and age of front-line players re playing a role here.
Fever Pitch Guy
Mike – Have to agree, along with injury history. Rather than lament the absence of often-injured older players such as Stanton and Carpenter and Donaldson and Chapman, be grateful that players such as Judge and Cole have stayed healthy.
Thesecondjamie
Most of the players on the roster have been injury prone for most of their careers.
They had remarkably few injuries in the first half. So now it just feels like it is evening out.
GarryHarris
The Tigers are a young team and they lost their entire pitching two lines deep.
The Yankees seem to lose much of their lineup the last three – four seasons. They don’t seem to consider players injury history when they acquire Stanton, Donaldson…
Sideline Redwine
Welcome to the TB Rays’ ENTIRE season.
ForDoingNothing
Literally every team in playoff position is going through the same amount of injuries or more (Twins going through more). Your team isn’t special. Top 3 payroll every year and haven’t won a title in 13 years. YIKES
DR2020
These are all our good, important players at least on the hitting side, other than Judge. Truly absurd. I hope the New York Yankee rail riders have some offense in them tonight
Larry Bernandez 1324IM
With or without DJ, the Rays are going to win the Division
C Yards Jeff
Toronto might have a shot as well. Unlike the Yanks and Rays, they’re healthy … plus they are a solid road team.
Larry Bernandez 1324IM
Rays are getting Wandee Franco back on Friday
Frankee
Rays are about to go on the road and their schedule ahead is difficult. A longshot to win the division.
inkstainedscribe
I hold no grudge against the Yanks, but all the talk (in June) of a Subway Series sure has unleashed some nasty karma.
Joe says...
The Yankees and Mets fortunes have definitely changed.
matt11209
DJ should have understood that trying to play with an injury like that is helping no one.
C Yards Jeff
Yes, agreed. But also, could the team Dr and/or training staff have miss diagnosed and he pressed on based on their advice?
MuleorAstroMule
Andujar’s finally getting his sixth chance.
kellin
I gotta ask. is this a reference to Man or Astro-Man?
MuleorAstroMule
Yessir.
Mikenmn
Andujar has been up and down so often he should get a free supply of Dramamine. But seriously, this team looks like a “sell at the deadline, keep it going with spare parts” even though it’s not. Injuries, poor performance, listlessness. You can’t win if all you are managing is 6 hits a night.
2400+ AB In MLB
The inevitable annual collapse is in full swing. 1 World Series in the past 22 years and none in 13 years and counting despite staggering payrolls (very often the biggest payroll in MLB) year after year after year. brian cashman has no coherent plan- he just throws things against the wall and hope something sticks- pathetic. Long past time for the Yankees to get rid of brian cashman.
Y4L
“Precisely when LeMahieu started hurting isn’t clear, but he’s seemingly been operating at less than full strength” AFAIK it was a HBP on that toe that caused the issue.
Frankee
I can see a scenario where Severino, Benintendi, Rizzo, and Carpenter return. LeMahieu not so much. But with those other four they’re much more formidable.
Sideline Redwine
Benintendi from hamate bone problems? Good luck with that….Wander has already missed a couple months with that.
Joe says...
Sevy should be back soon but Beni is done for this year.
DR2020
That’s true, we could sure use him. In fact we could use almost anybody right now. We are fielding a minor-league team.
TradeAcuna
Don’t want to be that guy, but I’ll be that guy.
All the missed WAR the Yankees are not fielding is concerning.
Sunday Lasagna
@ozuna if the most WAR was so important, how did the Braves (Cumulative Player 2021 WAR = 40.2) beat the Dodgers (55.1) last year? Blue Jays had a cumulative player WAR of 52.4 last year and didn’t even make the playoffs!
Fever Pitch Guy
Wampum – Stop making sense! To some here, WAR is the be-all end-all of statistics.
EasternLeagueVeteran
Deivi Garcia: Prospect, Super Prospect, Pseudo Prospect, Suspect. The hype machine can’t help him now and they didn’t trade him when the hyperbole was high. Like Andujar before him. Florial is the current one trying to show everyone he isn’t a pseudo prospect. Good luck to Cabrera and Peraza, too. George Steinbrenner would have instructed Gene Michael to package these kids for Bryan Reynolds or Sandy Alcantata or Shohei Ohtani before they were shown to be less than Super Hyped Prospects.
GarryHarris
George Steinbrenner ruined the Yankees in the 80s for doing just that.
whyhayzee
But Gene Michael would have held on to them if they were truly good. He was an excellent judge of talent. Even if George was ruining the show. I mean running the show. Oops.
oneiblnd
Paternity leave? Really? Save it for the off-season.
Poster formerly known as . . .
As far as I’m concerned, Josh can stay at home and help his wife raise the new child. I prefer IKF at third base.
larkraxm
Donaldson is washed. I would rather see IKF at third and Peraza/Cabrera at SS every day. How about Andujar? Andujar has better swings and can still hit a high fastball. If I were him I would be mad too.
DR2020
I was just wondering though, these guys can’t get their bat on the ball anymore, but they have enough juice left to create more and more babies. Seems like their priorities a little bit screwed up. I guess Josh is being paid 25 million a year, to create babies, same thing with Trevino, although he’s not paid quite so much.
larkraxm
The real issue isn’t that Donaldson is having babies, it is that it was a relief that he wasn’t in the line-up. I wish he had fifteen babies and wasn’t available ever again. If he is available, stupid a** Boone will put him in the middle of the line-up.
Yankee Clipper
Well, fortunately Boone is going to save us from having to use any mental energy on figuring out ways to win because, as Michael Kay noted during the game tonight, Boone said that once Donaldson comes back, he’s going to 3B, IKF is going back to SS and then Peraza will get “some time at SS.”
I love how Hicks’ casual trot in to play the ground ball hit to LF, with a 2-1 lead, made Gary Sanchez look like Billy Hamilton as he scored the tying run easily from 2B… nice job, Hicksie.
Poster formerly known as . . .
I don’t know which is running this show, Cashman or Boone, but this season is going in the toilet thanks to Cashman’s disastrous trade deadline deals and the misuse of assets based on salary instead of performance.
Yankee Clipper
Jomboy made an interesting point before the first game yesterday; he said that the Yankees likely hope IKF doesn’t succeed at 3B so it quiets the clamor for him to be moved off of SS. Whereas if he flashes leather at 3B, a la 2020, it forces the Yankees into more uncomfortable decision-making postures between Peraza, IKF, & Donaldson.
BTW, Donaldson will be returning Saturday, for game #2 with the Rays.
I am not looking forward to the offseason either. That’s going to be a frustrating endeavor, filled with empty promises about attempts to acquire FAs or Nutting-like inaction.
Poster formerly known as . . .
If, as expected, the Yankees squander this season, the only thing that will redeem it for me is if Cashman finally gets fired. But I don’t expect it.
Yankee Clipper
Yes, I agree, but Boone goes with him. I look at it this way, we had two in-house options under the Yankees Global umbrella for managerial candidates, to lead a “World Series caliber team” to #28 after 5 failed attempts in a row. Both analysts, who cover different aspects of the game.
One, was had minimal experience with no other coaching under his belt whatsoever, except what he demonstrated during the past 4 seasons, in which his team was eliminated from the playoffs after securing a WC.
Now, the other had previous experience with really bad teams, including this very franchise, during a historically bad Yankees epoch, and coaching old and new players alike. He is renowned throughout the game for his baseball intelligence and has led teams to the postseason as well.
Who would you choose? Definitely number 1, right? Uh, NO.
The reality is Cashman is a good GM. He is good at several things, but building a championship team is not one of them. He’s made some very big blunders (many have) that if not for the money & resources the Yankees have, he likely would’ve met his fate long ago. I would even argue that Cashman should stay if they were dominant, but they’re not, nor have they been.
Boone is a decent manager for a team rebuilding, where players can be coddled and their mistakes can be forgiven in perpetuity. A place where he can stand by the vets because, well, they’re the vets on the team, even if they’re the worst players. He would probably do well in an environment like the Pirates, or the O’s, or the Rangers, or the Reds… you know, a place with no real expectations of winning, honestly.
DR2020
That about sums it up clip. And although John boys meditations are interesting, I doubt the Yankees or Cashman care enough about what the fans think to put that much brain power into it.
Yankee Clipper
Yeah, I agree. The reason I found Jomboy’s comments so interesting is because of his relationship with the Yankees. He’s certainly not afraid of speaking his mind despite that fact, which I respect.
Poster formerly known as . . .
Even the Twins announcers said in the ninth inning: “The strike zone has certainly favored the Twins in this inning,” so spare me the “Yankees strike zone” BS.
whyhayzee
Yup, you’re right. Those calls on Torres were terrible. Robo umps can’t happen soon enough.
I cannot stand it when the dumpires affect the outcome of the game because they miss calls.
larkraxm
Judge gets a minimum of three strikes called per game that are under the zone. It is every damn game!! Is that the “Yankees strike zone”???
Yankee Clipper
As a comical side note I heard Orel Hershiser (I think) calling the Dodgers/SF game on Monday. When Gallo struck out against Doval, he said, “That’s elite hand eye coordination missing that (fast)ball right down the middle” – implying Doval is just that good, and it’s not nearly as easy to hit his FB right down the middle as it seems.
Now, Doval may be just that good, but I’ve also seen many, many pitchers’ middle-middle FBs look like Doval’s against Joey Gallo…. Gallo has a tendency to make pitchers look elite.
DR2020
He’s been doing that a lot lately, with the Dodgers, just like he was with the Yankees, despite his complaining and bragging when he left. He should’ve kept his mouth shut now he just looks like a fool.
jakethesnizake
Great ROI on the DJLM contract, as predicted.
Yankee Clipper
DJ is a great pure hitter. If we needed a 2B I think he would’ve been an excellent selection. The problem, imho, is that he was redundant as we had Gleyber. Plus, he was paid $15M/year to be a UTL guy, when they were trying to save money, and we desperately needed key positions filled (CF/SS/C/SP). That $15M goes a long way when funds are restricted….
YankeesBleacherCreature
I look at DJL’s contract as a 4-year deal. Does anyone really expect him to play well or even be serviceable at age 36 and 37? I don’t. Toe injury? Just good ol’ fashion wear-and-tear. I wanted DJL back but not at 6 years but AAV manipulation, ya know.
JoeBrady
I thought it was a bad idea. My rational was that Gleyber needed to start at 2nd, and DJ doesn’t really play any place else..So, even though my rationale stunk, I still get partial credit for getting the answer correct.
DR2020
so true clipper. I think Cashman was succumbing to Overwhelming fan pressure.
I’m wondering though why Stanton is not playing again against the rays first game, when this lineup is so depleted right now. you mean to tell me he’s so banged up that he can’t even DH a couple of times in the game, they can always remove him later on in the game if they had to. And if he’s injured why isn’t he on the injured list so that we can have another body up here
Yankee Clipper
Yeah, great questions and I’m sure Meridith will ask him. Utopia that he was brought in as a PH last night but he’s not in tonight. SUCKS for Yankees Land that Trevino is on daddy duty. I’m happy for him, and I wish him and his family all the best. Maybe we finally figured out what’s making the Yankees so tired in the second half?!
Poster formerly known as . . .
Guaranteed, if Billy Martin were managing, Hicks would’ve been out of the game after the first of his misplays in left, never mind the second.
Poster formerly known as . . .
Hicks needs to be DFA’d. Some other team will probably pick him up if Cashman eats enough salary. But then he’d have to admit to a mistake.
atxapex
Oswaldo Cabrera looks like Latino Chevy Chase
Poster formerly known as . . .
Pinch hitting Stanton who hasn’t done a thing at the plate since coming off the IL. Who expected him to come through, other than Boone? Stanton hasn’t even been able to hit fastballs over the plate since returning, and he was going to get a hit off Rasmussen?
Yankee Clipper
Dude, Hicks in the 3-hole, are you kidding me? Captain Whiff?! Why. Do. We. Keep. Playing. Aaron. Hicks? He plainly sucks. Bad.
Poster formerly known as . . .
There are over 42 million reasons why Hicks keeps playing.
GarryHarris
Aaron Hocks will be cut soon enough after yesterday’s performance in LF.
Poster formerly known as . . .
I thought this was interesting and perhaps telling, from a story about Maris’s son feeling “disappointed” that Judge didn’t publicly say his dad’s 61 HR was the real record:
‘Judge acknowledged that Barry Bonds had the single-season home run record despite the cloud the steroid era in baseball had over the former San Francisco Giants slugger.
“The record’s the record,” Judge told reporters following the Yankees’ doubleheader sweep of the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday. “That’s what I go by. I watched him as a kid flip the ball into the bay with ease. That hasn’t changed.”
foxnews.com/sports/roger-maris-son-wishes-aaron-ju…
I said it before and I’ll say it again: I think Judge is going to end up a SF Giant next year.
Yankee Clipper
I wouldn’t doubt it as SF was his childhood dream team. Combine that with their financial flexibility and Hal’s notable financial inflexibility and it seem destined to come true.
But, I do think it’s Judge being diplomatic too. All the single-season HR guys (Bonds, Big Red, Sosa) are all alive, so I’m sure Judge doesn’t want to create animosity. Also, he doesn’t want to accuse a player of PEDs who was never caught despite what we all know.