ANAHEIM, Calif. — On the way to the majors’ third-best record entering Wednesday, the Yankees have received key contributions from just about everybody on their roster, including Anthony Rizzo.
And yet, through the first two months of the season, Rizzo has not looked quite like himself.
There are worse problems to have than a first baseman producing at around a league-average rate — especially because Rizzo remains an important voice in the clubhouse, which cannot be discounted when evaluating his overall impact.
But when healthy, Rizzo has shown what kind of lift he can give the Yankees on both sides of the ball, which makes it stand out when he is not doing it on a consistent basis, as has been the case early on this season.
“You’re constantly working in the best of seasons and seasons where you struggle to try to get it to click,” manager Aaron Boone said before Wednesday’s game at Angel Stadium. “Trust that it will with Rizz. He’s not far from being in the midst of a really good season, too. He’s had a couple-week stretch here where he hasn’t got a lot of results. But it’s certainly in there for him to do it.”
Boone dropped Rizzo to batting seventh on Wednesday — the lowest he has hit since his rookie year in 2011 with the Padres — in part because the Yankees were facing left-hander Tyler Anderson, just the third southpaw they have faced in the last 31 games.
The left-handed hitter has typically been solid against lefties in his career, but has struggled against them this season in a limited sample size (batting .185 with a .439 OPS in 59 plate appearances).
Rizzo’s defense also came back under the microscope Tuesday night, when he booted a ground ball to his right that should have gotten the Yankees out of the eighth inning with a 3-2 lead.
Instead, it gave the Angels another out and they rallied for a 4-3 win.
The 34-year-old, a four-time Gold Glove winner, had some defensive miscues early in the season but had been playing better of late before bobbling a pair of balls in the last two games before Wednesday — the first on a bunt in Sunday’s loss to the Padres.
“Honestly, disappointing,” Rizzo said of his defense overall this year. “But over the last few weeks, fairly good. But to my standard that I hold myself to, I just need to be better. I need to make that play. It stinks.”
Through 55 games, Rizzo’s minus-one Defensive Runs Saved ranked 14th among qualified first basemen and his zero Outs Above Average were tied for 16th.
“Little uncharacteristic there, but part of it,” Boone said. “We always talk about the offense going through it, sometimes even the best go through it, a mistake here and there defensively. It can be challenging. He’s still great over there, just a couple hiccups here lately.”
Rizzo, who was out on the field at Angel Stadium early Wednesday afternoon to take extra batting practice with hitting coaches James Rowson and Pat Roessler, has also been in a quiet stretch at the plate.
He came into Wednesday batting .208 with a .555 OPS through his last 26 games and .245 with a .680 OPS on the season.
Among 25 qualified first basemen, Rizzo’s 0.1 fWAR ranked 18th among. His .680 OPS ranked 16th and his 99 WRC+ (an adjusted measure of offensive production relating to run creation, with 100 being league average) ranked 15th.
“Whereas that is lower than we’re accustomed to, it’s also on the cusp of being able to easily be turned around,” Boone said. “Just gotta keep grinding, get that good feeling going and hopefully we see that steadily climb.”
Boone said did not think Rizzo’s struggles had anything to do with coming back from the concussion that derailed his season last year.
“Because he really had a great winter,” Boone said. “Even at the end of last year in September, he was doing really well, and then his winter was excellent. He’s in excellent shape. Had a really good spring. Even this year, even with the start of the season, he’s had some runs where he’s been very good. He’s not far from that cusp of moving that needle where he’s all of a sudden not at the bottom of whatever he is.”
