NEW YORK — The Yankees have placed first baseman Anthony Rizzo on the 10-day injured list with post-concussion syndrome, which the club believes stems from a May 28 collision with the Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said that Rizzo passed Major League Baseball’s concussion protocol at that time. However, Rizzo said he has noticed feeling more tired than usual, which the veteran largely attributed to the grind of a long season.
“You wake up some days feeling not very good; some days, you feel better,” Rizzo said. “That’s kind of normal throughout the year. It was more walking back and saying, ‘Man, I don’t understand how I missed that pitch.’ I would swing at a pitch middle-away, and I thought it was three feet off the plate. Things like that really started making me concerned.”
At the conclusion of the Yankees’ recent series against the Orioles in Baltimore, which included the first five-strikeout game of Rizzo’s career, Rizzo mentioned feeling some “fogginess” to the club’s medical staff.
Rizzo played in two more games on Monday and Tuesday against the Rays before undergoing a new round of neurological testing, which took place on Wednesday and revealed signs of cognitive impairment. Rizzo is being treated with supplements, and he said his doctor is confident about a full recovery.
“Everything that they talked about basically came back with a silver lining — that I’m not crazy for walking back to the dugout consistently thinking, ‘Man, how did I miss that pitch?’” Rizzo said. “ … It came back saying I’m moving a lot slower than the normal person’s reaction time would be, and that’s definitely alarming, especially for what we do for a living.”
Rizzo, who turns 34 next week, is batting .244/.328/.378 with 12 homers and 41 RBIs in 99 games this season. His performance has severely dipped since the collision with Tatis.
From Opening Day through May 28, Rizzo batted .304/.376/.505 with 11 home runs and 32 RBIs. After that date, he batted .172/.271/.225 with a homer and nine RBIs.
“I don’t consistently miss these pitches that I’ve been swinging at and missing — really just blatantly missing, big time, not even coming close,” Rizzo said. “I can’t put a stamp on when that happened, but the last few days, I’ve voiced it a little more.”
Said Boone: “I think there’s probably him looking back, going, ‘I didn’t feel quite right.’”
In a corresponding roster move, infielder/outfielder Oswaldo Cabrera was recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre before Thursday’s series opener against the Astros. Boone said that the Yankees will evaluate Rizzo “week to week.” Jake Bauers and DJ LeMahieu will platoon at first base in his absence.
“We’ll see how [Rizzo] progresses and how he’s feeling, and hopefully we’ll get him back,” Boone said.