Aaron Boone insists Miguel Andujar’s shoulder seemed fine to him. Andujar echoed his manager. He hasn’t changed anything in his throwing mechanics and he didn’t feel any pain in the shoulder.
Andujar just so happened to commit two errors in his first game back since suffering a tear in the labrum of his right shoulder on March 31.
“I felt better than I expected, and honestly just happy to be back here,” the third baseman said after the Yankees’ 7-3 loss to the Twins in The Bronx.
Andujar, last year’s American League Rookie of the Year runner-up, was charged with two errors, and his three throws across the diamond could hardly be considered rockets. He flipped the ball there, putting little strain on the shoulder. In the second, an Eddie Rosario grounder snuck under his glove. And in the seventh, Andujar charged a Nelson Cruz chopper, threw towards second on the move for the force, but the ball sailed on him into right field.
“On the throw to second where he threw it away his footwork got away from a little bit there, off the wrong foot and the angle,” Boone said. “But I didn’t think he was tentative, no.”
“Errors are going to happen in games,” Andujar said. “Just a bad throw, bad execution there.”
For now, Andujar will see a lot of time at designated hitter, as Gio Urshela mans third base, Boone said. Andujar was only there Saturday because Boone wanted to keep Gary Sanchez’s lethal bat in the lineup — the catcher blasted his 11th home run of the season — and he didn’t want him to catch the day game after a night game.
“He’ll mix in [at third base],” Boone said of Andujar. “The way we are right now, there’s probably more DH games [for him].”
Andujar didn’t look rusty at the plate, going 1-for-3 with a walk out of the cleanup spot. He singled to center field in the sixth and flew out to the warning track in left-center in the eighth. He was a welcome sight to the injury-ravaged lineup — which is still without Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks, Giancarlo Stanton and Didi Gregorius.
“I took many at-bats in the minor leagues,” Andujar said. “They helped me to get back in a hitting rhythm. It feels good. The rhythm is there.”
His bat wasn’t the concern, though. It was how his shoulder would hold up in the field, how much time he could spend at third base. His first day out there didn’t alleviate those worries.
