Luke Voit may be a man without a position when he returns to the Yankees, but he began down that road on Tuesday by starting a rehab assignment with the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders.
Voit’s night was, as one pundit put it, “perfectly Yankees,” as he struck out in his first at-bat and grounded into a 6-4-3 double play in his second before launching this solo shot leading off the sixth:
Voit played seven innings defensively at first and was on deck when the bottom of the seventh ended. He was replaced in the field in the eighth by Brandon Wagner, who ended up pitching the ninth inning of the RailRiders’ 7-2 loss to Worcester to help save a pitching staff depleted by the loss of three hurlers called up to the Majors to cover for Jordan Montgomery and Gerrit Cole going on the COVID IL.\
The Yankees’ (former?) first baseman has been on the IL since July 16 due to inflammation and a bone bruise in his left knee, his third IL stint this season. He has played in just 29 games this year due to surgery on his left knee, an oblique strain, and now this knee issue.
The Yankees dealt for Anthony Rizzo at the trade deadline, in part because Voit has missed much of the season, and the team has used eight starters at first (including Rizzo and Voit). Yankees first basemen enter Wednesday having slashed .208/.302/,343 with 13 homers and 44 RBI, much of that being the few games of Rizzo (7-for-16, two HR, five RBI) and Voit’s 29 (.248/.327/.386, 3 HR, 11 RBI).
Giancarlo Stanton has played the outfield three times in the last five games, however, so Voit and/or Rizzo could see some action in the DH spot down the stretch when Voit returns.
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