After spending the latter part of last season playing with a fractured foot, DJ LeMahieu opted to not get what would have been a complicated surgery that wouldn’t have assured he’d be healthy this year.
It’s one of the reasons he doesn’t second-guess his decision, even as he’s in a slump and in the middle of what has been an average season at the plate.
“I don’t regret it,’’ LeMahieu said before gong 1-for-4 in the Yankees’ 5-1 loss to the Padres n The Bronx. “The surgery would mean a lot of months to recover and no guarantee it was gonna work.”
But even with those red flags, LeMahieu said he weighed it.
“I definitely thought about it, but it’s more of a last option,’’ LeMahieu said.
And one that remains if he aggravates the fracture in the future.
Despite the lack of results for much of this season — LeMahieu entered Friday in a 3-for-26 slump with eight strikeouts, with a career-high strikeout-rate on the season — he said he feels OK.
“The last couple of weeks have been a grind,’’ LeMahieu said. “I don’t feel like I’m far off from feeling really good at the plate again.”
He insisted the foot issues that he’s managing with treatment and different cleats are not the reason for his mediocre overall numbers. He hasn’t needed any cortisone shots, as he did last season, and that gives him and the Yankees confidence he will snap out of his funk.
“He says he’s fine, the trainers say he’s fine and that’s what we go off of,’’ hitting coach Dillon Lawson said.
Lawson pointed to a few mechanical issues that LeMahieu is dealing with in his swing that have impacted his power and timing, but nothing out of the ordinary.
“From what I can tell, it’s a normal slump,’’ Lawson said.
Both LeMahieu and Lawson said the bigger issue is LeMahieu uncharacteristically missing pitches in the strike zone.
He is making contact less on swings both inside and outside the zone, according to FanGraphs, which has resulted in a career-high 26.9 strikeout rate, compared to 14.9 percent for his career.
That number has jumped out at Lawson.
“We have to acknowledge that he’s been pitched to a little bit different than other years, so we’ve got to make an adjustment there,’’ Lawson said. “It’s about where people are attacking him.”
It’s also related to LeMahieu’s approach.
“He’s typically had a disciplined approach, but he’s missing pitches a little more, which create more two-strike counts,’’ Lawson said. “But it’s never been broke before with DJ and it’s not now. The biggest thing is he’s not panicked at all. Sometimes you’ve got to make a change and we had that moment last year because of what he was dealing with [physically]. We’re not there.”