DJ LeMahieu will be available to play for Yankees on Tuesday
SEATTLE — DJ LeMahieu is ready to try it again.
The “it” being staying healthy and making a run at recapturing at least some of the form that made him a three-time All-Star and two-time batting champion.
But first things first for the injury-riddled 36-year-old Yankees infielder, a player who suffered a left calf strain in his first Grapefruit League game in spring training (that after suffering a right foot contusion in mid-March the previous year that more or less ruined his 2024).
After two weeks of rehab games split between Double-A Somerset and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, LeMahieu is set to make his 2025 debut after flying west Monday. Before the start of the three-game series against the Mariners, Aaron Boone said LeMahieu will be active and available for Tuesday night’s game and likely will start Wednesday afternoon’s series finale.
Pablo Reyes, who had been playing mostly at second base since Jazz Chisholm Jr. was lost for at least a month, and likely longer, with an oblique strain, is the most probable roster casualty when LeMahieu is activated.
“I think he’s in a good spot,” Boone said Monday. “I know his ramp-up’s been good. I feel like [he’s] ready to go and hopefully ready to contribute.”
Just how much LeMahieu, who has one year after this one remaining on the six-year, $90 million free-agent contract he signed before the 2021 season, has left is a question that is a long way from being answered.
Boone said on Sunday — stating the obvious, considering the state of his roster when it comes to options at second base — that LeMahieu, when in the lineup, primarily will play at second base (he also can play third and first).
Boone wouldn’t go so far as to say LeMahieu will be his everyday option at second, a prudent statement given his recent injury history.
“I don’t necessarily see every day, but we’ll see how he’s doing and how he navigates it, but I definitely see him as a piece to the puzzle and we’ll just continue to see how he’s doing physically, how he’s bouncing back, where he’s at,” Boone said Sunday. “We’ll evaluate it as we move through.”
LeMahieu looked the part of a big-leaguer in his nine rehab games — three with Scranton and six with Somerset — slashing .444/.500/.593 with a home run and four RBIs.
“I think he looks really good,” shortstop Anthony Volpe said Monday. “Just his behind-the-scenes work and everything, he looks really, really ready to go.”
LeMahieu hit .327 in his first season as a Yankee in 2019 and won the American League batting title in the COVID-19-shortened 60-game 2020 season, hitting .364. That added a second batting title to the one he captured with the Rockies in 2016, when he hit .348 to lead the National League.
But it has been a precipitous fall from there, as in four of the last five seasons since 2020, LeMahieu has spent time on the injured list. In the one season he did not, 2023, he clearly felt the impact of the toe injury that derailed his 2022 season.
LeMahieu had a .243/.327/.390 slash line in 2023, but that was a stellar season compared with 2024, when he fouled a ball off his foot in a spring training game and suffered a right foot contusion. He had a .204/.269/.259 slash line in 67 games last season, missing the last three-plus weeks of the year with a right hip impingement.
“The biggest thing is health,” Boone said Monday. “DJ LeMahieu [can] fall out of bed and hit, and I think the biggest thing that’s tripped him up over the years is just the nagging different injuries that have popped up that have slowed him. Obviously, he’s older now, but I always feel like guys that can really hit, like him, if you’re healthy, you can usually really hit late in your career. Hopefully he can come and be a real contributor for us.
“What that role is, does it turn into something more every day? Does it turn into part-time? I don’t know, but as long as he’s healthy, I won’t be surprised with anything he brings to the table.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.