Yankees hold out Austin Romine with lingering hamstring issue

While Austin Romine said his hamstring is feeling better, he was still held out of the Yankees’ lineup Wednesday to get an extra day of rest.

“I think I could play. I played in a game the other day and caught an 104-mile-per-hour fastball,” said Romine, who left Saturday’s game and has been out of the starting lineup since with a hamstring injury. He appeared as a substitute Monday.

Romine added his hamstring feels “really good today” and there have not been any setbacks. An MRI on his hamstring came back negative, but Aaron Boone told reporters he wanted to give Romine back-to-back days off ahead of the team’s upcoming 11-game road trip. Thursday is the team’s last scheduled off day before the All-Star break from July 16-19.

“He’s so important to us the next couple of weeks that, with the off day, I don’t want to push him,” Boone said. “[Backup catcher Kyle Higashioka] has done a nice job in there for us. [I’m] basically just trying to steal another day, because we’ll lean on [Romine] pretty heavily on this next road trip. We have a doubleheader coming up and no off day after [Thursday].”

Romine said he understood the decision, but still said it was “frustrating.”

“I definitely want to play,” he said. “You see the type of team that’s here. You want to be out there as much as you can . . . To not be able to do that is tough. I’d love nothing more than to be out there playing with the guys.”

Romine himself was filling in for Gary Sanchez, who is on the disabled list with a groin injury, and has been one of the pleasant surprises of the season. He is hitting .271 with a .336 on-base percentage and .469 slugging percentage in 33 games.

Higashioka is just 2-for-13 since being called up in late June, but both of those hits were home runs.