Logo

The biggest jolt of production the Yankees landed at the trade deadline hit the COVID-19 injured list Sunday.

Anthony Rizzo became the fourth Yankee to test positive for COVID-19 in the past week, joining Gerrit Cole, Jordan Montgomery and Gary Sanchez.

The first baseman, who learned of the positive result after Saturday’s win in The Bronx, is feeling “achy” among other symptoms, but is doing “all right,” according to manager Aaron Boone.

Rizzo will be out at least 10 days as the Yankees try to continue their playoff push without him and hope their latest outbreak stops there.

“We gotta roll,” Boone said before Sunday’s 2-0 loss to the Mariners. “Of course concerned. But we’ll continue to do the best we can with it and try to navigate it and deal with it.”

To replace Rizzo, the Yankees activated off the injured list Luke Voit (knee), who will temporarily reclaim the starting first baseman job he had lost when the Yankees traded for Rizzo from the Cubs.

The 32-year-old Rizzo, a cancer survivor, told Chicago reporters in June that he had not been inoculated because he was waiting to see more data on the vaccines. Boone declined to say whether that had changed.

The Yankees have more than 85 percent of their Tier 1 personnel vaccinated, leading to the loosening of some restrictions, but have still had 10 players test positive for the virus in the last month. The majority of them were “breakthrough” cases, in which a fully vaccinated person becomes infected with the virus.


  Anthony Rizzo Howard Simmons Anthony Rizzo Howard Simmons

Boone pointed to the Yankees playing six games in Florida — where cases have been surging recently — last week as the likely cause of their most recent outbreak. He said they would be mindful as they start a three-city road trip on Monday through Kansas City, Dyersville, Iowa (“Field of Dreams” game) and Chicago.

“I think in a lot of cases, we already are being more careful,” Boone said. “But yeah, those’ll be conversations that we have to make sure we’re not doing anything that’s too outgoing. Without being restrictive, making sure that we’re taking care of ourselves.

“Obviously things have been, for a while, returned to almost completely normal. That went for us as well. But certainly things are much more relaxed. So there’s those chances, even for vaccinated people, that it can spread. I don’t know what to tell you.”

In nine games with the Yankees since arriving from the Cubs, Rizzo batted .281 (9-for-32) with three home runs and six RBIs — one in each of his first six games. Players had spoken glowingly of his impact — not just with his bat and glove, but in the dugout and clubhouse as well.

“He’s obviously been terrific for us in every way,” Boone said. “[He’s] obviously a little bummed out, but hopefully a chance to get rested up and well and be back hopefully sooner rather than later and back to impacting us.”

Comments
anonymous profile image
Powered by RoundtableBuilt on infrastructure designed for real-time media. Learn more at RTB.io.© Roundtable 2026. By using this site you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy