Yankees lineup scuffling with key player sidelined due to serious injury
Without slugger Juan Soto, the New York Yankees are struggling to produce offense.
Soto sat out again Saturday night due to left forearm soreness, and New York lost 11-3 to the Los Angeles Dodgers for the second time in a row.
“He sort of ramped up and everything. I’m not sure if he hit or anything, but he went through his usual pregame routine. “So we’ll see,” manager Aaron Boone said after the game.
The Yankees have the best record in the American League at 45-21, but they have only scored four runs in 23 innings since Soto left Thursday night’s 8-5 win against the Twins due to forearm soreness. Aaron Judge has three, thanks to two solo home runs on Saturday and an RBI single in the 11th inning in a 2-1 loss Friday night.
Boone stated that Soto will “probably” hit on Sunday.
“I know today he felt really good, noticeably better in his eyes, but it was also important I think that yesterday he not do much of anything baseball (related) to try and get this to calm down,” Boone stated. “It sounded like he felt better today. He went through his customary preparations, which went pretty well. So let’s see what we have tomorrow.”
The ace right fielder missed his first game of the season, Friday night’s series opener against the Dodgers, after being pulled from Thursday’s game against Minnesota due to a 56-minute rain delay before the sixth. He stated that the forearm on his throwing arm has been troubling him for roughly one and a half to two weeks.
A scan revealed merely inflammation, which Soto described as “a relief,” and he is now taking it day by day.
“We’re leaning towards giving it a couple days, for sure,” Boone said Saturday afternoon. “So we’ll see how he does today, and moving around.”
Trent Grisham replaced Soto in the lineup, while Judge moved from center to right. For the second consecutive night, left fielder Alex Verdugo was promoted from cleanup to Soto’s customary No. 2 slot in the batting order.
“It’s a big bat out for us right now, but at the end of the day, when one guy is down, the next guy’s got to step up,” Verdugo said after the Yankees went 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position and left ten on base.
Boone stated that Soto was undergoing treatment on Saturday afternoon.
“I believe he sees the big picture in all of this, too. And as much as this environment, this series, I mean, I’m sure there’s a part of it that’s killing him not being there, but I think he’s also like, I know I want to get this inflammation out of there and we can roll,” Boone explained.
“That being said, I don’t believe he is putting himself in danger by going out there. It’s not that type of issue. But we want to get that out of there, so we’ll keep an eye on how he’s progressing and when he’s ready, he’ll be ready.”
Boone was asked if the injured list is a possibility if Soto does not make significant improvement over the next few days.
“I guess it is a possibility, but I don’t expect that to be the case,” the manager responded.
Soto is hitting.318 with 17 home runs, 53 RBIs, and an OPS of 1.027.
