Yankees Place Struggling Infielder On Injured List Before Astros Series

The New York Yankees have had a rough 2023 campaign, and the hammer has dropped again on the Pinstripes.

Slumping first baseman Anthony Rizzo was placed on the 15-day injured list with a “likely concussion” prior to New York’s four-game series with the Houston Astros on Thursday, per The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner.

Yankees skipper Aaron Boone said the injury was traced back to a collision with San Diego Padres outfielder Fernado Tatis Jr. on May 28 and Rizzo will be evaluated week-to-week.

“He’s just been complaining the last few days of some fogginess,” Boone told Kirschner. “So we ran him through a battery of tests, neurological stuff. It came back as cognitive impairment.”

Rizzo exited the May 28 game in the sixth inning when the first baseman collided with Tatis during a pickoff play at first.

“Waking up, the way I’d describe it as you go to bed sober and you wake up a little hungover,” Rizzo said of his symptoms. “When that happens, I’m like that doesn’t seem normal.”

Rizzo started slumping at the plate following the collision and thought it was just part of being a baseball player and that he would come out of it. But the longer he struggled at the plate, the more concerned the 33-year-old veteran became.

“I’ve struggled plenty in this game, but I’ve also done it for a long time to know that you usually come out and there’s signs of coming out,” Rizzo said in a team-provided video. “I remember talking to someone like ‘Oh, do you feel you’re coming out of this soon?’ I answered honestly. ‘No, I don’t,’ because it just, I couldn’t feel what you’re trying to feel as a hitter and I don’t know if that’s related. And I guess now we can, we can link two and two together.”

Before being evaluated by a neurologist, Rizzo said he started to go over checklists on his mechanics at the plate such as timing, and how he was constantly late or seeing the location of the ball at the plate and watching video and realizing the actual location was different.

“Everything that they came back with basically came back on a silver lining of I’m not crazy for walking back to the dugout consistently thinking ‘Man, how did I miss that pitch? I usually don’t miss that,” Rizzo explained. “And as a baseball player, it’s frustrating and we compete and we try to find answers within the game.”

Rizzo added that his reaction time is “moving a lot slower than the normal person” but with the regiment the doctors have placed him on he should be fully healed.

The Yankees were also tasked with placing starting pitcher Domingo Germán on the Restricted List following his voluntary submission to inpatient treatment for alcohol abuse on Wednesday night.

Currently, 3 1/2 games out of a wild card spot make the injuries that much harder to overcome for the Pinstripes.