Prior to tonight’s game, the Yankees made the following roster moves:
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) August 3, 2023
• Placed INF Anthony Rizzo on the 10-day injured list with post-concussion syndrome.
• Recalled INF/OF Oswaldo Cabrera (#95) from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Finally, an answer that makes sense, sort of. Anthony Rizzo had been absolutely dreadful the past two months, including a five strike out game against Baltimore this past week. He got off to a great start to the season, so his drop off in production was very alarming. Now we find out that he has been dealing with post-concussion syndrome.
Anthony Rizzo said he noticed he was more tired, but attributed it to the grind of the season. He mentioned waking up feeling hungover, and occasionally forgot the numbers of outs. Testing showed his reaction time was slower. “I didn’t just forget how to do this all of a sudden.”
— Bryan Hoch ⚾️ (@BryanHoch) August 3, 2023
This is concerning for a number of reasons. But first and most importantly, I hope Rizzo gets better. Obviously this is a very serious thing. The only time I’ve heard of another athlete dealing with this issue was Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins, which caused him to miss a ton of games in 2011. I hope Rizzo gets the treatment and rest he needs and gets passed this, because he was doing great to start the year.
Here is the issue though, the Yankees are saying that this stems from the May 28 collision with Fernando Tatis Jr. That’s over two months ago! The Yankees and Boone said that Rizzo passed all the concussion protocol tests, but it has been obvious something was wrong with Rizzo for a long time.
“Everything that they talked about with basically came back with a silver lining – that I’m not crazy for walking back to the dugout consistently thinking, ‘Man, how did I miss that pitch?” Rizzo said. “ … It came back saying I’m moving a lot slower than the normal person’s…
— Bryan Hoch ⚾️ (@BryanHoch) August 3, 2023
Clearly Rizzo didn’t know exactly what was wrong with himself and why he was so bad either; but I don’t know, between this, and the fact it seems like every year key players get injured, maybe the Yankees medical staff needs an overhaul. There is no way Rizzo should have been playing baseball for two whole months as poorly as he was without a medical check further than a concussion test. Especially because he started so hot. No one stopped to think maybe it was because Tatis smashed into him? It feels like malpractice. Very frustrating.
While we’re here, Domingo German is also done for the year after checking into rehab voluntarily for alcohol abuse. Could that have something to do with why he didn’t start when he was scheduled to and then ended up pitching in the 5th inning anyway? Who knows, but I hope he gets the help he needs as well, what a tumultuous season it’s been for him and the rest of this team.
All this coming off the heels of Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner not making any notable moves at the deadline. Can’t make it up.
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