Getty Yankees manager Aaron Boone (right) benched Anthony Rizzo (left) this week
For Yankees fans, the numbers on first baseman Anthony Rizzo are all too familiar. He’s hitting .224 for the season, with an OBP of .285 and a slugging percentage of just .339. He has one hit in June and is batting .035 for the month. His last homer came on May 10, and he’s hitting only .115 in his last 16 games. Yankees manager Aaron Boone, obviously, took note—he benched Rizzo on Sunday and Monday.
Amid a Yankees lineup that has thrived from the get-go this MLB season, Rizzo has been the one dark cloud. But he had some strong thoughts about his swing, his slump and his benching.
“I’m sure it’ll come back,” Rizzo said, per the Daily News.
“This is something that I’ve been through every year since I played baseball. It seems like it’s a little worse at this moment, but every time I’m in it, it seems like it’s the worst it’s ever been. So you just gotta stay the course.
“When you’re in a rut, whatever you do, you don’t ever think you’re gonna get out of it. And when you’re riding an all-time high, you think you’re never going to ever go back into a rut. Life will always humble you and even you out.”
Anthony Rizzo Struggled After 2023 Collision
What’s potentially concerning about Rizzo’s downswing here in 2024 is that it follows a mostly miserable 2023 for the slugger, a year in which he hit .244 with only 12 homers in 99 games and posted an OPS of .706, the worst full season of his career.
The Yankees took heat for allowing Rizzo to play despite having suffered an apparent concussion, and despite the fact that he was clearly being affected by it at the plate. Rizzo was hitting well early last year before he suffered a neck injury in a collision with the San Diego Padres‘ Fernando Tatis Jr. in late May and was not the same after, complaining of “fogginess” and having difficulty seeing the ball, according to MLB.com.
The Yankees shut down Rizzo in early August last year with post-concussion syndrome.
Rizzo, though, said there was no link between his struggles in 2023 and his slump now.
“All that’s behind me,” Rizzo said. “I’m seeing the ball as I should be seeing it. I’m just mechanically a little off.
“The physical capability and talent is there.”
Yankees Seeking Trade to Upgrade 1B?
It’s uncertain that the Yankees, though, are buying that. Rizzo will turn 35 in August, and it’s possible he is just getting older. With the trade deadline coming up on July 30, the Yankees are said to be considering trading for a first baseman to take Rizzo’s place.
Former GM Jim Bowden wrote in The Athletic on June 11: “The Yankees will be monitoring the right side of their infield with hopes that first baseman Anthony Rizzo (.624 OPS) and second baseman Gleyber Torres (.640) start providing more offensive production than they have over the first two-plus months of the season. If they don’t, the Yankees will at least consider upgrading there at the deadline.”
Boone, though, has hope that Rizzo will bounce back after a break.
“There’s no question, the last two or three weeks have been a little struggle,” Boone said. “Sometimes, when you go through it and make adjustments and they don’t take right away, it’s hard. … Sometimes it’s a process and you’ve got to have small little gains along the way to get where you want to go and that’s hard as a player.”