TORONTO — About 10 to 15 minutes before the first pitch Sunday, Juan Soto walked into Aaron Boone’s office and asked if it was too late to enter the lineup.
The star right fielder had not been in the first game the Yankees released, having spent the morning receiving more treatment on his injured right hand and then taking swings in the cage, which had proven too difficult the day before.
But on Sunday everything was much calmer and, suddenly, Soto… He found himself ready to play in the series finale against the Blue Jays.
“We hustled and changed a little bit and obviously he played a big role in us being able to get started there,” Boone said after the game. Yankees win 8-1 at Rogers Centre.
Soto went 1-for-3 with a pair of walks, hit a line-drive single in his first at-bat and scored on Aaron Judge’s homer.
He said he felt good hitting, but catching the ball in right field was “a little difficult.”
Although Soto said he still had some swelling in his hand after Sunday’s game, he felt he was well enough to give it a try.
“I think I was in a position where I could help my team,” Soto said. “I was feeling good when I was warming up. I know I have a good chance to try and win a match today, so I tried.”
It remains to be seen whether Soto will need even more images of his hand when he returns to New York on Monday.
Before Sunday’s game, he indicated he would likely get an MRI or CT scan, but after the game he said that would be a conversation he would have with a team doctor.
The Yankees had delayed releasing a lineup for most of the morning as they tried to see if Soto could play and initially left him out.
It would have made sense, especially with an off day on Monday, to play it safe and give Soto an extra day to rest.
“The biggest thing, and what I told him this morning when he got here, because I knew he was feeling better, and he looked a lot better, is that I didn’t want him to compromise his swing or do anything,” Boone said. “By all accounts, after he had hit, the hitting coaches, who (on Saturday) were concerned, said, ‘He looked great. ’ The coaches approved it, so we were ready.”
Gleyber Torres, who has become close to Soto, said they were concerned about his thumb on Saturday night.
On Sunday, shortly before the first pitch, those concerns had been allayed, at least for that day.
“I heard him hitting in the cage and it was pretty loud, so I thought that was a good sign,” Judge said. “I’m excited to get him back in there and get him back to doing what he does in the first inning, which was good.”