TORONTO — Juan Soto’s right hand was feeling better Sunday, but still not good enough to get back in the Yankees lineup.
After going through pregame activity to see if he could play, Soto remained out of the lineup for Sunday’s series finale against the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre.
The MVP contender said he was feeling “way better” on Sunday morning after getting treatment throughout Saturday, but when he spoke to reporters, he had not yet tried swinging.
While X-rays were negative on his hand on Saturday, Soto indicated that he could get more imaging on Monday when the Yankees return to New York, depending on how he was feeling.
With an off day on Monday, it was sensible for the Yankees to give Soto an extra day of rest to get more swelling out of his bruised hand, especially given how he felt trying to swing a bat on Saturday.
“It was a big pain in my hand,” Soto said. “It [felt] even a little weak whenever I swung. It was just a different feeling. I [couldn’t] even hold the bat. [If] I keep swinging, then it starts changing my swing, so I stopped. Just couldn’t do it.”
The Yankees delayed putting out a lineup to see how Soto got through pregame activity, including swinging, but he ultimately was left out of it.
“I don’t want him compromising anything or changing his swing,” manager Aaron Boone said before the lineup came out. “If there’s any of that, then we will wait. But he was pretty adamant that, ‘I feel like I can maybe do this.’ So we’ll see what we have when he gets into the cage and make a call.”
Soto was wearing a black wrap on his hand Sunday morning, aimed at helping to reduce the swelling from the injury that stemmed from slamming his hand on the ground after sliding into home plate Friday night.
Boone described the right fielder as having “pretty significant improvement” from where he was on Saturday, but it was not enough to avoid missing his fifth game of the season.
“I think it’s way better today,” Soto said. “We did a lot of treatment, a lot of work. The trainers did a really good job trying to get the swelling out and get me prepared for today.”
Without Soto, Boone shifted Aaron Judge to right field and had Trent Grisham in center field.
