NEW YORK – The Yankees had faced the Blue Jays’ Trey Yesavage before Wednesday’s game, but they had yet to manage a hit. Their first may have come at a price.
Trent Grisham exited the club’s 2-1 loss early with left knee discomfort. He was examined at Yankee Stadium by team physicians and is scheduled to undergo imaging on Thursday, though he said he is “very optimistic” about the situation.
“I just felt weird in my knee for a little bit,” Grisham said. “It didn’t feel like something I should mess with.”
Grisham reached on a bloop second-inning double that fell between left fielder Yohendrick Piñango and third baseman Kazuma Okamoto. Grisham looked toward his left knee after sliding safely into the bag, though he said he didn’t notice an issue until later.
“I didn’t even notice it,” Grisham said. “Gave my guards [to the first-base coach], felt fine. Felt everything was normal; slide felt normal. I went into my secondary [lead] and that’s when I felt the discomfort.”
When the inning ended, manager Aaron Boone came out of the dugout to confer with Grisham, who remained in the game to play defense for two more innings.
Spencer Jones emerged on deck and was preparing to pinch-hit for Grisham in the fourth inning. Jones replaced Grisham in center field for the top of the fifth.
“The way he was hopping on second, I was concerned it was a calf or something like that,” Boone said. “It wasn’t that. He was good to go out in the field. When he came in, we felt like he was all right. Then before his at-bat, we wanted to see how it was and just felt like we needed to get him out of there at that point.”
Coming off a breakout year in which he belted a career-high 34 home runs, Grisham has been off to a slow start offensively. Through 49 games, Grisham is batting .174 (27-for-155) with seven doubles, one triple, six homers and 27 RBIs, posting a .653 OPS.
“I don’t want to speculate too much,” Boone said, “but for him to come out of the game, it definitely raises your eyebrows. So we’ll see what we have and go from there.”