The injury news for the New York Yankees continue to pour in as DJ LeMahieu, their starting third baseman for the upcoming season, is dealing with soreness in his foot. This came after a foul ball in yesterday’s game that caused some pain, and as a precautionary measure, the Yankees ran testing on it. Aaron Boone reported that they were clean, but that the infielder is still dealing with soreness in the foot, and they’re hoping it’s a day-to-day situation. After losing Oswald Peraza to a shoulder injury, the Yankees are already thin at third base, and they’re hoping the soreness can subside soon.
After a hectic week where they had an elbow scare with Gerrit Cole and a weird situation with Aaron Judge’s abdominal, the team is hoping to walk away from this week without losing another key cog to their machine.
DJ LeMahieu Dealing With Foot Soreness, Yankees Hopeful It’s Day-to-Day
The injury that DJ LeMahieu is dealing with is on his left foot which is important because the toe he injured that ended his 2022 season was on the right foot, so there isn’t a concern of re-injury there. In yesterday’s contest, the 35-year-old infielder hit a ball off of his foot and was in clear discomfort, although he was able to finish the at-bat and walk off on his own, not needing any help or support getting off the field. It’s a seemingly precautionary move to let him get imaging, which makes sense given the amount of bones in the foot and how easily something can break.
Also in 2022, the Yankees lost Matt Carpenter in the middle of his insane run with the Yankees after he fouled a ball off of his foot, and while he finished the at-bat, he would miss the rest of the regular season and the ALDS against the Cleveland Guardians. He did return in the ALCS against the Houston Astros, but his performance was abysmal and he seemingly lost his mojo as he was playing through the injury. The Yankees avoided that scenario most likely, but they’ll keep LeMahieu on ice and off the field to make sure there’s no further damage done.
DJ LeMahieu hasn’t necessarily had a strong Spring Training, posting a 46 wRC+ and .276 OBP in his 10 games thus far, but the team isn’t worried considering the quality of contact. Thus far he’s hitting the ball 90.9 MPH on average with a 45% Hard Hit%, but the lack of elevation and the increase in strikeouts are stuff he’s still working on hammering out before the team heads to Houston. He’s part of the travel squad that’ll depart for Mexico, although it’s unclear whether that’ll change with this newfound issue.
There’s also not a clear question as to who the Yankees would start in place of the veteran infielder if the foot didn’t progress the way they wanted. Oswaldo Cabrera and Jorbit Vivas both have experience at third base and are both on the 40-man roster, but neither would be considered a starting-caliber player at the position right now. They’d need to search externally for an option, and according to Jack Curry, it’s likely that they do find their reserve infielder from the trade or free-agent market.
It seems that their preference would be a trade since free agents haven’t been built up for the regular season, and as rosters continue to shrink, they could find their match sooner rather than later.