Juan Soto didn’t play for a third straight game Sunday, but there is optimism regarding the outfielder’s near-term future.
Manager Aaron Boone said “the hope” is that Soto is back in right field on Monday in Kansas City and following a 6-4 win over the Dodgers, Soto said he felt OK.
“We’ll see how it feels [Monday] after we fly,’’ Soto said. “I took some hacks before the game and felt good. I did all my work and it was good enough.”
The results Soto and the team got from the testing done after he was removed following Thursday’s lengthy rain delay due to left forearm discomfort have been encouraging and Boone said whenever Soto is ready to play, he’s expected to play defense, and not be limited to DH.
“It’s just how he feels,’’ Boone said. “With the answers we got back from the testing, we’re not worried about him doing anything baseball-wise.”
Without Soto again on Sunday, the Yankees put Trent Grisham in center field again, with Aaron Judge shifting from center to right.
Soto had played every game this season prior to the forearm discomfort and played in all 162 games with the Padres last year.
Judge hit another homer in the Yankees’ 6-4 win over the Dodgers in the series finale and has seven in his last 10 games and 11 in 17.
He has also hit eight home runs in 10 career games versus the Dodgers.
And he nearly added another highlight, as he almost threw out Shohei Ohtani at the plate on a shallow sacrifice fly by Will Smith in the eighth. … Boone argued what he thought should have been an interference call on Kiké Hernández on a bunt play in the seventh, when Jose Trevino tripped over Hernández’s leg.
“I want to get more clarity on it,’’ Boone said of the conversation he had with home plate umpire Nestor Ceja. “He said [Hernández] had some rights [to be where he was].”