ESPN: Yankees first baseman ruled out for the playoff due to serious injury.

After Saturday’s loss to the Pirates, Yankees manager Aaron Boone informed reporters, including MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch, that first baseman Anthony Rizzo has two fractured fingers after being hit by a pitch from Pittsburgh lefty Ryan Borucki. Hoch then stated that the first baseman had broken both his right hand’s fourth and fifth fingers, according to Boone. After the altercation, Rizzo left the game, and it’s unclear when he’ll be allowed to return to the diamond. Boone did not rule Rizzo out of the team’s impending postseason run, as Hoch pointed out.

As the week goes on, we’ll see what we have, Boone remarked. He is not completely ruled out by it. It’s a matter of pain tolerance.

This is Rizzo’s most recent injury-related setback in what has turned into a disappointing run of setbacks during his time with the Yankees. The veteran first baseman has been significantly less available during his time with the Yankees than he was during his eight seasons in Chicago, as he played in 94% of the Cubs’ regular season games from 2013 until his trade to the Bronx in 2021. Despite playing in 130 games during his first full season with the team in 2022, he has missed more than 60% of the team’s games the last two years due to post-concussion syndrome and a forearm fracture. In both cases, he was out for many months.

The 35-year-old’s effectiveness has declined this season; through 91 games, he is slashing just.227/.298/.334; these injury concerns have corresponded with the decline. A long cry from the output the Yankees were undoubtedly hoping to achieve when they signed him to a two-year agreement that guaranteed him $40M prior to the 2023 season, it’s his lowest season performance since the 49-game cup of coffee with San Diego that started his lengthy big league career. Nevertheless, the Yankees’ lineup going into the postseason is still hurt by losing Rizzo, even in a reduced capacity.

The Rockies were the only AL team with a lower wRC+ at first base than the Yankees did in Rizzo’s absence, and the club’s -1.1 fWAR at the position put them ahead of only the Astros. After all, the team received mediocre production from a combination of Ben Rice and DJ LeMahieu at first base. Furthermore, it should be mentioned that although Rizzo hasn’t exactly been the middle-of-the-lineup player he was in the beginning of his career,