HOUSTON — The swelling in DJ LeMahieu’s right foot has gone down, but it seemed to have hid something in his first MRI exam.
A follow-up MRI on Friday revealed LeMahieu has a non-displaced fracture in his foot, manager Aaron Boone said Saturday, stemming from the foul ball he hit off it on March 16.
Boone insisted that the new diagnosis didn’t change much with regard to LeMahieu’s status, but the Yankees third baseman will get re-imaged in two weeks to see how much progress he has made.
“It’s kind of tolerance as he builds up,” Boone said before the Yankees played the Astros at Minute Maid Park. “The last two days have been good. I think he actually hit in the cage [Friday]. I know he feels a lot better. … It shouldn’t stop him from progressing now as we go.”
Boone declined to put a timeline on LeMahieu’s return, but the 35-year-old will continue to work out in Tampa as much as he can tolerate.
LeMahieu was jogging Friday, doing his throwing program and hitting in the cage. Boone said he was “significantly better” on Friday than where he was when the Yankees broke camp on Monday.
“It’s not something he’s going to play through,” Boone said. “He’s going to be 100 percent when he comes back. I think the sense is that it should be, over time, fine. It’s just we’re not playing through it.”
Initial tests all came back negative, but doctors scheduled LeMahieu for a follow-up MRI at the two-week mark because they knew swelling might have hidden something the first time around.
LeMahieu, who had the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023 compromised by a right foot injury, had been trying to ramp up his baseball activities in the final week of spring training in hopes of being ready by Opening Day, but he was still experiencing too much soreness.
A day after getting drilled on the right thumb by a 93 mph fastball, Gleyber Torres was back in the lineup, as was Juan Soto, who turned his ankle on a base Friday night.
Torres came out to the field early on Saturday afternoon to play catch, as a concern over his ability to throw prompted him to pull himself out of Friday’s game in the seventh inning.
Clayton Beeter’s MLB debut lasted three pitches Friday night — and he got three outs — but then on Saturday, it was back to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
The Yankees optioned Beeter to Triple-A before Saturday’s game and called up left-hander Tanner Tully to provide them more length in the bullpen.
Despite Beeter, who is normally a starter, only throwing three pitches to close out Friday’s win, the Yankees did not want to take any chances with throwing the 25-year-old into a tough spot.
“Really just being thin down there [in the bullpen] and him being a starting pitcher, some of his [injury] history, just not wanting to put him in a bad situation if something happened where we had to do something early and we’re really thin and don’t have real length,” Boone said. “The reality is — and he felt good today — we could probably throw him out there. But when you’re not built for that, it concerns me.”
Beeter will stay built up at Triple-A “and hopefully be back here shorter rather than later,” Boone said.
“We’re really excited about him,” Boone said. “I know he’s going to help us a lot this year.”
Beeter, a Fort Worth, Texas native, had a large group of family and friends in attendance Friday night to see his debut, however brief it was.
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