DJ LeMahieu was out of the Yankees lineup for the second straight game Monday. The veteran infielder had an MRI on the right big toe and he was prescribed orthotics and medicine in hopes he can manage this down the stretch.

“Right now he’s day to day. They found some inflammation in there. It’s a little tricky so he’s just going to be basically getting treatments, hopefully kind of get the right orthotics going and hopefully create a little bit of relief,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said before Monday night’s series opener against the Rays. “In the last few days, it’s been really swinging that bothers him when he kind of rotates on that back foot. So, hopefully, it’s something that medicine, treatment, and orthotics will help correct and relieve some of those symptoms.”

LeMahieu has been dealing with the toe issue for a while. He had a cortisone shot in it during the All-Star break and got some relief, but said that it started “creeping back in” on the nine-day road trip the Yankees just finished.

On the road trip, LeMahieu went 6-for-35 with a double, home run and an RBI. It’s probably not a coincidence that the Yankees offense has hit the skids at the same time, it was obvious last year when LeMahieu struggled through most of the season with a sports hernia that he is a very important piece to that lineup.

It’s also left the Yankees playing short the last two nights, similar to how they played shorthanded for five games as they waited for Anthony Rizzo to get over his back spasms last week.

“It may be just today,” Boone said. So we’ll kind of revisit that every single day. Yeah, there’s talk and that. but this is something that is not necessarily that the treatment of it is go and stay away for 10 days, two weeks, four weeks. That doesn’t necessarily guarantee it being where you want it to be. So it might be something that we just have to manage. And so that’s what we’ll try to aggressively treat here and get it to where it’s something that is tolerable for him to work through. But we’ll revisit that kind of every day.”

Anthony Rizzo is used to getting hit by pitches. The lefty sluggers’ swing requires him to dig in closer to the plate than other hitters, so there is no real surprise that he leads the majors having been hit by 17 pitches this season.

Monday night, he was plunked in the third inning of the Yankees 4-0 loss to the Rays  by Ryan Yarborough, began taking off his batting gloves and turned towards first base when home plate umpire DJ Reyburn stopped him. He ruled that Rizzo did not attempt to get out of the way of the pitch and therefore he did not have to award him first base.

Rizzo erupted, but got nowhere with Reyburn or crew chief James Hoye. According to MLB rules, that call is up to the umpire’s discretion.

“Yarbrough throws a big sweeping slider and if I bail early on that, it comes back to strike. Pretty annoyed afterwards at the (call at the) last second there,” Rizzo explained. “Don’t wear any pads up there. I’m pretty good at bracing for balls. It’s one of those things I saw I was about to get a brace for it. It is what it is.”Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who was already playing with a short bench because DJ LeMahieu was out with a sore big toe, had to come out and get between Rizzo and Reyburn.

“Bad call,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Where’s he supposed to go? He’s making a move to hit and he turns into that. It’s a missed pitch. It’s not across the plate into the box. Rizzo’s all over the plate all he can he can’t get out of the way. So once he starts to make his move to hit he rolls the hip in. I didn’t think it was the right call.”

Rizzo got about a minute of argument in and did not get ejected. He went 1-for-4 with three strikeouts in the Yankees’ second shutout in as many nights.

He claimed it doesn’t matter that the call came during the Yankees’ 2-10 slide.

“Whenever you feel like you got screwed over on a call, anytime. It’s annoying because we’re out here competing at the highest level and I’m up here talking to you guys. The umpires have zero accountability when they miss something like that,” Rizzo said. “So I know. I know they’re not trying to miss but it’s just frustrating. It doesn’t matter when it happens.”

Michael King is optimistic he will not need further surgery to repair his elbow. The right-hander, who suffered a fractured elbow throwing a pitch July 23 in Baltimore, said that they were able to repair the bones but not get a perfect image of his ulnar collateral ligament.

“I got a couple plates and screws in my elbow to fix the olecranon (the bony end of the elbow). It was a full olecranon fracture,” King said. “And because my arm was kind of stuck (in a bent position). It wasn’t the easiest way of stressing the (ulnar collateral) ligament to see if there’s anything wrong with the ligament. But from the MRIs that I was able to get. It looked like the ligament was intact and pretty healthy.

“But doctors wanted to just kind of crank it again in six to eight weeks when I get my full range of motion back to make sure there’s really no stress on my ligaments,” King said. “So they’ll do some stress tests then. But I’m optimistic right now.”

King was brilliant to start the season. In a career-high 34 appearances, King had a 2.29 ERA with 66 strikeouts over 51 innings pitched. He admitted he was trying to pitch through some discomfort for a while.

“All pitchers kind of go through some stuff and try to fight through some things and I knew our bullpen needed some help. And I also felt like I was pitching well, so I wanted to throw through whatever I was feeling,” King said. “There are so many times where I’ll throw through something for a week or two and then it totally goes away and I’m great.

“And unfortunately this wasn’t those times so I was trying to go through it and I felt a pop and didn’t feel good.”

King would tentatively be able to begin a throwing program at the beginning of November if they do not find any more damage to the elbow. He would be ready for a full go in spring training if that were the case.

Luis Severino threw his first bullpen since going on the injured list with a strained lat on Monday. He tried throwing all his pitches and got up to 25 pitches. He is on the 60-day injured list and not eligible to come back until mid-September, so he will have plenty of time to build up to a full starter volume.

Copyright © 2022, New York Daily News

Copyright © 2022, New York Daily News