Slumping Anthony Rizzo dropped to sixth in Yankees' lineup
Yankees' Anthony Rizzo reacts after being called out on strikes during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Oakland Athletics in Oakland, Calif., Saturday, Aug. 27, 2022. Credit: AP/Godofredo A. Vásquez
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Anthony Rizzo hasn’t been the same at the plate since missing five games in early August with lower back tightness. As a result, he batted sixth for the first time this season Monday night. He had batted third in 90 of his 114 games.
“That’s what Boonie [Aaron Boone] thinks is best,” Rizzo said. “First, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth . . . it doesn’t really matter. I just want to help in any way I can.”
He helped in the fourth inning Monday night, sending a drive just inside the rightfield foul pole for his 29th homer. That gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead over the Angels, but former Yankee Mike Ford homered off Frankie Montas in the bottom of the inning to tie it.
Aaron Judge hit his 50th home run in the eighth inning, a 434-foot shot that brought the Yankees within 4-3. He became the 10th player in MLB history with more than one 50-homer season.
Rizzo entered Monday hitting .223 with an .817 OPS. Since returning to the lineup, he was 12-for-60 (.200) with a .573 OPS, one homer and three RBIs in 16 games.
“Right now, obviously, I’m not hitting the way I would like to be,” Rizzo said. “There’s some good numbers, there’s some bad ones. You just have to keep grinding. You have to compete and work through it and go up there knowing I can compete and get that good-feeling swing back at any moment.”
Boone said he felt as if before Rizzo was sidelined, “he was really starting to catch fire.”
“It’s been slow to get rolling since then,” Boone said. “That’s probably been a little bit of a factor.”
Rizzo, who several times Monday said his back is fine, wasn’t using his brief time away as an alibi for his recent performance.
“No excuses,” he said.
Holmes returns
The Yankees reinstated Clay Holmes from the 15-day injured list, where he had been since Aug. 17 (retroactive to Aug. 15) with a left lower back spasm.
Though Holmes still has good numbers — a 2.39 ERA in 49 games — he lacked command and allowed runs in four of his last five outings before landing on the IL.
More roster doings
The team placed Marwin Gonzalez on paternity leave Monday and recalled Tim Locastro from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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