After two-and-a-half months on the injured list, Anthony Rizzo said he felt “100 percent ready to go” as he returned to the Yankees’ lineup.
The Yankees activated Rizzo before Sunday’s game against the Cardinals, then started him at first base and batted him seventh in his first MLB action since he fractured his right forearm in mid-June.
“Excited to be back,” Rizzo said before the game, “and excited to help this team.”
Rizzo suffered the injury on June 16, when he collided with Red Sox reliever Brennan Bernardino at first base while attempting to leg out a ground ball at Fenway Park.
The 35-year-old Rizzo was in the midst of a down season at the time — with a .223 average and a .630 OPS — but he hopes to provide a boost to a Yankees team that began Sunday with a 1.5-game lead atop the American League East.
“This is what we play for,” Rizzo said. “It hopefully will just be a boost of energy, and come in and help. This team’s played really well, and we’ve put ourselves in a really good position [on] Sept. 1 to go out and win a division, set ourselves up nicely for the playoffs.”
The Yankees struggled to find consistent production at first base in Rizzo’s absence.
Rookie Ben Rice, whom the team called up when Rizzo got hurt, hit .174 with seven home runs and a .624 OPS in 149 at-bats. The Yankees sent the 25-year-old Rice back to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre after Saturday’s game.
DJ LeMahieu, meanwhile, entered Sunday with a career-low .202 average and a career-worst .525 OPS.
A three-time All-Star selection, Rizzo recorded two hits — including a home run — in 11 at-bats over five games during his minor-league rehab assignment.
“I feel like [Rizzo is] in a really good mental place, and physically, I think, has been feeling really good, really, for a few weeks now,” manager Aaron Boone said Sunday. “Hopefully he can come in and provide something for our lineup.”
This is the second year in a row that a first-base collision landed Rizzo on the injured list.
Rizzo was shut down in August 2023 with post-concussion syndrome, a little over two months after the Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. crashed into him at first. In his 169 at-bats between that collision and his diagnosis last season, Rizzo batted .172 with one home run.
Despite those struggles the past two years, Boone hopes Rizzo can add length to a lineup that features fellow left-handed bats in Juan Soto, Austin Wells and Jazz Chisholm Jr.
“I still think it’s in there for him to be productive,” Boone said of Rizzo. “I feel like he’s walking in here with some confidence. Obviously, an amazing track record and a proven money kind of player, especially this time of year.”
Rizzo said that his recovery felt “long,” but that everything went according to plan and that he’s back to full strength.
“The expectation is just to take it one day at a time, one at-bat at a time, one inning at a time in the field, but I fully expect to come out and just be myself,” Rizzo said. “That’s the goal: Just be myself.”
