Anthony Rizzo injury details are scarier than Yankees let on

Late last week and early in the process, the hope was Yankees slugger Anthony Rizzo would recover from his epidural and return to the Yanks’ lineup some time after the weekend series in Tampa, following a procedural workout.

Unfortunately, things have not gone according to plan. Rizzo was placed on the Injured List on Tuesday afternoon, but not for the reason you may have thought, considering his balky back had forced him to the shelf in the first place.

Rizzo will instead be gone for another week (at least) while doctors attempt to find the source of the intense headaches that resulted from his epidural in Los Angeles.

While it’s believed the two issues are correlated, fans learned on Tuesday that Rizzo’s back issue was largely solved by the procedure, but the headaches have not dissipated, leading to “doctor’s orders to rest.”

In a few words … he’s not doing much of anything at the moment, and physicians are being extra careful as they attempt to pinpoint what caused this adverse reaction.

In another word … yikes?

Yankees’ Anthony Rizzo hits injured list with headaches…unrelated to back issue?

It’s difficult to even call this injury mismanagement by the Yankees. It could be medical malpractice, but there was always much more to this situation than met the eye. If the doctors say that Rizzo, a cancer survivor who’s overcome more than most, shouldn’t be ramping up for mid-September action, then he probably should be sitting for a while longer.

Without Rizzo’s 30 homers, Matt Carpenter’s 15, and Joey Gallo’s 12 (for three very different reasons), the Yankees have almost no left-handed punch on their current roster. Even Andrew Benintendi’s pair of dingers were recently erased by a fracture to a bone he thought he’d had removed back in high school. You can’t write this stuff.

Boone’s additional quotes on Rizzo’s diagnosis were even less optimistic, somehow, than the original message. It sounds like a lot of questions, thus far, and very few answers.

Without Rizzo, Benintendi, DJ LeMahieu, and potentially Giancarlo Stanton in the lineup for this weekend’s Rays series, the Yankees will be … well, right back where they started last week.

Paging Ronald Guzman and Oswald Peraza. Late-season contributions by those two during an otherwise-scary injury situation would be a trademark Rays move anyhow. Fight fire with as much fire as you still have.

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