Anthony Rizzo is back from the COVID IL and in the Yankees’ lineup at first base Wednesday night, and Yankees manager Aaron Boone said it “felt good” to be able to pencil Rizzo back in.
“He had a good day yesterday, and checking in with him this morning, we made sure he was good to go,” Boone said. “Excited to have him back, but the one thing we’ll have to watch is the stamina part. There will probably be some off days here in the first few, a little bit of a buildup for him, but we’ll communicate on that with him.”
So, the path remains open for some playing time for Luke Voit, who is not in the lineup for Wednesday’s finale with Boston – but Boone agrees with Voit’s synopsis that he deserves some PT, and plans on giving him as much as possible.
“He understands he’s going to play a big role in this, and the more you start planning out moves, baseball will throw you something to change those plans anyway. Luke is totally on board and knows he’s going to be a big part of this,” Boone said, both in his daily pregame media briefing and his weekly appearance on WFAN's Carton & Roberts shortly thereafter. “I see lots of playing time for a lot of people, and we’re at the point in the season where it’s about us trying to rack up wins.”
Boone has talked to Voit about the situation, and often reiterated Wednesday that Voit “will play a big role” and “is on board with this,” the “this” being the Yankees’ need to win as many as possible over the next seven weeks to make the postseason.
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“Hopefully we continue to get guys back and remain healthy, and you can envision Luke in the lineup a lot as guys move around or take days off,” Boone said. “We have 40-something games left, and we know how important these days are and where we are in the season. This is about us as a team trying to get as many wins as we can, and Luke’s going to play a big role in that. We all know in this clubhouse what he brings and what he's capable of."
One way the Yankees can go about getting both Rizzo and Voit in the lineup? Using a Gallo-Stanton-Judge outfield, something that Boone is on board with doing a few days a week – likely with Judge in center field – after seeing how Stanton has played the outfield so far.
“You can all sit there and envision the puzzle and where you see everyone fitting in, but I feel really good about what G has done out there,” Boone said. “I feel like he’s looked really good and played a solid outfield for us. His body has responded to it, so whether it’s a couple times a week or whatever, I do envision it moving forward. That’s a way we can keep everyone fresh and keep this going.”
Once again, “everyone is on board with that,” because the idea is for the Yankees to “do everything we can to put ourselves in the best position” – and Boone is actually happy that he has players who are upset on days they’re out of the lineup.
“We have a lot of good players, and a lot of good players will have a lot of opportunities to impact us in a meaningful way,” Boone said. “I want all our guys to want to play every day, and I don’t necessarily want guys to be happy when they’re out of the lineup – but, I want to see this play out, and there's likely going to be a very good player on the bench every day. I want us to be able to keep guys fresh and put guys in the best position to impact our club at a high level nightly.”
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