Yankees need Anthony Rizzo, DJ LeMahieu to break out of slumps

With Aaron Judge out for an indefinite amount of time with a right big toe sprain, every slump by his teammates takes on additional scrutiny.

Currently, it’s Anthony Rizzo and DJ LeMahieu in that uncomfortable spotlight.

After going 0-for-4 in Friday night’s 3-2 loss to the Red Sox at the Stadium, Rizzo’s season slash line stood at .273/.345/.450 with 11 homers and 32 RBIs. That's quite respectable, but it includes a seven-game stretch entering Saturday night’s contest against the Red Sox in which he has gone 1-for-27 (he came into Saturday 0-for-his-last-21).  

“It’s a six-, seven-game stretch that [stinks], but six or seven games, 10 games, three weeks, isn’t going to define your season,” Rizzo told reporters Friday. “Just got to keep going.”

Before the slide, Rizzo had been the Yankees’ most consistent offensive performer this season not named Aaron Judge.

After the Yankees beat the Padres on May 28, a game in which Rizzo went 1-for-3, the first baseman’s slash line stood at .306/.376/.505.

“With Judge in the lineup, without him in the lineup, you always want to play well,” said Rizzo, who received the night off Saturday but was available off the bench. “Obviously, when he’s not, it’s on all of us to pick it up, but this is baseball. This is part of it. You go through it [slumps], and it’s what makes it so sweet when you have success.”

Rizzo, who even with the slump has hit safely in 43 of his 60 games this season and has hits in 21 of his last 31 contests, was forced from that May 28 game after an awkward collision at first base on a tag play involving the Padres' Fernando Tatis Jr. Rizzo subsequently missed three straight games — 29-31 in Seattle — with neck stiffness.

The Yankees constantly monitor Rizzo's back, which seems to flare up at least once a season, but they believe he is healthy. “He’s been scuffling a little bit, obviously,” Aaron Boone said. “Ebb and flow of the season, but I think physically he’s good.”

The Yankees have said the same regarding LeMahieu, who  had a  .164/.211/.254 slash line in his previous 18 games — with 19 strikeouts in 67 at-bats — going into Saturday. The skid dropped his season slash line to .239/.302/.390.

Because of a mysterious toe injury that hampered LeMahieu the better part of the last two months of last season, questions about his health as he’s slumped have become more frequent. Both LeMahieu and Boone have continued to say he is healthy.

“I think he has expanded a little bit when he’s been behind in the count with two strikes, chased a little bit more than we’re accustomed to seeing,” Boone said of LeMahieu, who has struck out 60 times in 205 at-bats (compared to 71 strikeouts in 467 at-bats last season). “This year he’s gotten some pitches within an at-bat that normal DJ puts in play and is on base and the at-bat is over. Some of those balls have felt more like foul balls this year.”

LeMahieu perhaps showed some signs Friday of emerging from his recent slide, getting hits in his first two at-bats.  

“He’s a great hitter and you trust that water will find its level,” Boone said. “Hopefully it’s something that returns a little bit more to what we’re accustomed to with DJ. I know he’s grinding through it and I believe the hit tool he has will reveal itself.”