NEW YORK -- Mark Teixeira has gotten to a point where he automatically assumes the worst. Everything else has gone wrong this season. Why not another setback?
In the fourth inning of the Yankees' 5-2 loss to the Red Sox on Saturday, Teixeira fouled an Eduardo Rodriguez pitch off the inner half of his left foot. Teixeira hobbled around in pain and the training staff came out, but he elected to stay in the game and grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning later in the at-bat.
Teixeira finished the game, but he still chose to take a precautionary X-ray after the game ended. The tests came back negative, a development that surprised Teixeira given how the rest of 2016 has played out.
"It's been a tough season," Teixeira said. "You kind of think the worst when stuff like that happens."
Last season, Teixeira fractured his right shin on a foul ball on Aug. 17. Teixeira appeared in two more games, but he was then placed on the 15-day disabled list with what was originally called a bone bruise. An MRI taken Sept. 11 showed he actually had a fracture and his season was over.
On June 3, Teixeira was placed on the 15-day DL with a cartilage tear in his right knee.
Though Teixeira initially thought the worst Saturday, all signs point to his foot being fine, and he said his goal is to play in Sunday night's game. That said, if his injury doesn't keep him out of the action, his lack of production may.
The once-formidable first baseman has limped through the season with a .186 batting average and a .568 OPS, the fourth- and sixth-worst totals, respectively, among players with more than 200 at-bats this season. Since coming off the DL on June 25, Teixeira's marks have improved, but not by much, as he's hitting .207 over that span.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi said that he does have options to replace Teixeira at first base if it comes to that, but he'd rather not do so quite yet.
"I'm not afraid to put [Rob Refsnyder] there. I'm not afraid to do that," Girardi said. "[But] we're trying to get [Teixeira] going, because he has the ability to be such a big bat for us. You look at San Diego, he hit a couple of home runs. He had a couple of big hits in Cleveland the other day. Then you get four days off. But we're trying to get him going."