The season is young, but New York Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo is off to a torrid start. In the opening series against the arch-rival Boston Red Sox, he became the first Yankees player to have two or more RBI in each of his first three games of a season since Joe DiMaggio in 1949.
Flashback to last July, when Rizzo was first acquired from the Chicago Cubs at the July trade deadline. He again put himself in the same breath as DiMaggio, joining the Yankee Clipper as the only members of this very storied franchise to score five or more runs and drive in two or more runs in their first pair of games with the fabled club.
Tonight, the Yanks will take on the Toronto Blue Jays, priced at Bwin for +115 on the total and -165 on the money line. The Blue Jays are considered the preseason favorite, by all the sports books, to win the AL East division, but the Bronx Bombers will have something to say about it.
However, they’re going to need all hands on deck in order to finish ahead of the Canadian bluebirds. Rizzo went 9-for-32 with three home runs in his first nine games in Yankee pinstripes last summer. Then, the unvaccinated first baseman contracted COVID, went to the sidelines and his numbers diminished down the stretch.
“Obviously, he caught fire as soon as he came to us and I think in a lot of ways COVID kind of … cut into the ascent he was on,’’ Yankees manager Aaron Boone said this spring training.
“I think it took him a while to get back going physically because it did knock him out for a couple weeks physically. It kind of killed some of the momentum he was building.
“I fully expect Anthony [to have] a really good shot at having a year that’s been in line with what he’s done in his career, which is a lot of production.”
If Anthony Rizzo, who currently leads the team in RBIs, total bases, on-base percentage and OPS (by a wide margin) in indeed vaccinated, then the rest of what follows here is moot. If he isn’t, well that’s a major problem, given what happened last year.
Rizzo contracted covid, right when he was on a hot streak, and it ruined his season. It could happen again this season, leaving some of the other big name bats like Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, D.J. LeMahieu, Josh Donaldson, Gleyber Torres etc. without any cover. It’s the only way the Yankees are going to win the division, and try to end their World Series drought.
They don’t have the requisite pitching; so they’ll need to out-bludgeon teams in order to succeed this season.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Bank (TheSportsBank.Net) and author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” as well as “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune, and co-hosts the After Extra Time podcast. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.