TORONTO — With a last-minute switcheroo, Juan Soto found his way back into the lineup Sunday.
The Yankees star right fielder arrived at Rogers Centre on Sunday morning with his bruised right hand feeling “way better,” and was set to go through pregame activity to see if he could play after having difficulty swinging a bat on Saturday.
The team delayed putting out its lineup, but when it finally did, Soto was left out of it. And then six minutes before the scheduled first pitch, a new lineup was released featuring Soto batting second and playing right field.
And in the first inning, Soto ripped a single to right before scoring on Aaron Judge’s two-run home run.
“I don’t want him compromising anything or changing his swing,” manager Aaron Boone said before the game. “If there’s any of that, then we will wait. But he was pretty adamant that, ‘I feel like I can maybe do this.’ So we’ll see what we have when he gets into the cage and make a call.”
While X-rays were negative on his hand on Saturday, Soto indicated that he could get more imaging on Monday when the Yankees return to New York, depending on how he was feeling. With an off day on Monday, it would have made sense for the Yankees to give Soto an extra day of rest to get more swelling out of his hand, especially given how he felt trying to swing a bat on Saturday.
“It was a big pain in my hand,” Soto said. “It [felt] even a little weak whenever I swung. It was just a different feeling. I [couldn’t] even hold the bat. [If] I keep swinging, then it starts changing my swing, so I stopped. Just couldn’t do it.”
Soto was set to try swinging again on Sunday morning, and evidently there was enough improvement to get him back in the lineup at the last minute.
Soto was wearing a black wrap on his hand Sunday, aimed at helping to reduce the swelling from the injury that stemmed from slamming his hand on the ground after sliding into home plate Friday night.
Boone described the right fielder as having “pretty significant improvement” from where he was on Saturday.
“I think it’s way better today,” Soto said. “We did a lot of treatment, a lot of work. The trainers did a really good job trying to get the swelling out and get me prepared for today.”
