DJ LeMahieu 50-50 to be on Yankees' ALDS roster
DJ LeMahieu’s injured right big toe — which hampered the infielder for most of the second half and caused him to miss much of the month of September — still is an issue.
The Yankees have until Tuesday morning to submit their 26-man roster for the best-of-five ALDS that starts that night at the Stadium against the Guardians, and it would appear to be a 50-50 proposition that LeMahieu is on it.
“That’s one of the things obviously we’re waiting on,” Aaron Boone said Monday of LeMahieu’s situation. “So we’ll kind of make that determination tonight.”
LeMahieu went 4-for-16 in five games after returning from the injured list Sept. 30, having missed 21 games with what the club called inflammation in the toe. After going 3-for-8 against the Rangers last week in the Yankees’ final three regular-season games, LeMahieu said he felt he could get off his good swing, or at least something close to resembling his good swing.
Boone did not sound so sure.
“I feel like he was still compromised. That’s what I was seeing,” he said Monday before the Yankees, LeMahieu included, worked out at the Stadium in the late afternoon. “So [we] kind of want to see how he is today and what he’s able to do and make that determination.”
If LeMahieu does not make the roster, utilityman Marwin Gonzalez is among the candidates to get his spot, with rookie Oswald Peraza also in that group of possibilities.
Boone said the Yankees will carry 12 pitchers on their ALDS roster.
Tito looks back
Guardians manager Terry Francona, who won World Series titles with the Red Sox in 2004 and 2007, at first didn’t warm to a question about his memories of Yankee Stadium but relented.
“I kind of stay really in the moment. I preach it to our guys, and the reason I do is because that’s what I believe in,” said Francona, Cleveland’s manager since 2013.
“But I do have good memories. I mean, the All-Star Game here in ’08, one of the most incredible things I’ve ever been a part of was standing . . . They had the coaches, some of us were behind home plate, like kind of back by the screen. And as they were introducing all these Hall of Famers at like every position, I remember sitting there thinking, what am I doing here?
“It was incredible. I was just really fortunate that I got to watch that because that will always stay with me.”
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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