TAMPA — Anthony Rizzo is not much of a coffee drinker, but those who are can imagine how he felt last year.
Through the first two months of the season, the veteran first baseman was the Yankees’ most consistent hitter.
Then, following a collision at first base with Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. on May 28, he was a shell of himself as he unknowingly played through a concussion that severely sapped his production before he played his last game on Aug. 1.
But nearly seven months later, after being cleared by doctors and having a normal offseason, Rizzo is back to feeling like himself.
“You’re just up to speed,” Rizzo said. “When you’re not up to speed, I guess I would describe it like if you’re a coffee drinker … it’s like waking up and trying to do anything before you have coffee. I don’t know, I’m just always alert and aware now.”
The difference was clear as soon as Rizzo began ramping up for this season.
He arrived in Tampa a few weeks before reporting to spring training and worked out at the Yankees’ player development complex, which included taking batting practice against live pitching.
“To get back and see the ball like I normally see it and see it again like that, it was like, ‘Oh wow, this is great,’ ” Rizzo said.
It was not great for the two months last year that Rizzo had to deal with the effects of the concussion while playing almost daily.
In 53 games before the collision with Tatis, Rizzo hit .304 with 11 home runs and a .880 OPS.
In 46 games after the collision, before he was finally diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome on Aug. 3 and went on the IL for the rest of the season, he hit .172 with one home run and a .496 OPS.
“It was just cognitively I was slower,” he said. “So it was an annoying feeling when I’d be like, ‘Man, how am I missing this pitch?’ Just to be up to speed is great.”
The Yankees need him to be.
Rizzo finally has some company in being an impact bat from the left side, as the club brought in Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo over the offseason, but the 34-year-old will likely be tasked with protecting No. 3 hitter Aaron Judge out of the cleanup spot.
If Rizzo can get back to hitting like the legitimate threat he was for the first two months of last season, opposing pitchers may not be able to completely avoid throwing strikes to Judge, especially with Soto batting before him.
“If [Rizzo] is right and he’s doing what he’s doing, he’s going to be one of the best hitters in the game at racking up RBIs,” Judge said. “Any big moment, any clutch moment, he’s so calm at the plate. You need a guy like that that’s going to put the ball in play, drive the ball all over the park. I’m excited. But just getting him back, he’s a Gold Glove first baseman, he’s one of the leaders in this clubhouse.
“And when he’s right, it gets all of us right.”
Manager Aaron Boone indicated he saw enough encouraging signs before Grapefruit League games even began to believe that Rizzo is, in fact, right.
“He looks good to me,” Boone said. “I’m not overly caught up in results with him. I guess there’s some small level of yeah, you want to see him go out there and do it, but there’s some confidence that he was going to be OK.”
For good measure, Rizzo picked up an RBI double in his first game of the spring on Sunday before going 0-for-1 with a walk in Monday’s 9-2 win over the Twins at Steinbrenner Field. But he said he didn’t need the game action to let him know he was fully in the clear.
“Spring training is all about just checking boxes,” Rizzo said. “It’s the normal boxes, not anything like last year checking boxes to get back to playing.”
