NEW YORK — Yankees first baseman Luke Voit may not have dodged a fastball, but he said he “dodged a bullet.”
And since Voit obviously doesn’t want to take another pitch to the face, he’s considering making a change.
Before Sunday’s game against the Colorado Rockies at Yankee Stadium, Voit said he might try wearing a helmet with a chin guard.
Colorado reliever Chad Bettis hit Voit in the face with a 94-mph fastball in the fourth inning of Sunday’s win by the Yankees. Voit stayed in the game to run the bases and even scored, but he came out in the top half of the next inning.
Tests showed Voit didn’t have a concussion, and he only busted his lip. He was in the starting lineup — playing first base and hitting seventh – on Sunday. He said he wanted to play.
“When it happened, I just grabbed my face and I was like, ‘Uh oh,’” Voit said. “And I don’t know. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. Just a scary thing. Just kind of the first instinct was — I kind of thought of (Giancarlo Stanton) right when it happened. I thought, ‘Broken jaw, my teeth are going to be all scattered everywhere.’ But nothing. I dodged a bullet and got lucky.”
Voit said he woke up with a “super sore” jaw Sunday morning but he was OK otherwise.
“It was like getting punched in the face,” he said.
Manager Aaron Boone wasn’t surprised Voit wanted to play so soon after such a scary incident.
“Right away, in my reaction to it, I’m sure like a lot of people, I got startled right away and jumped right out the dugout,” Boone said. "The concern, in my dealings, I felt right away he was pretty sound initially. We took him out just to be cautious.”
Brendan Kuty may be reached at bkuty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrendanKutyNJ. Find NJ.com Yankees on Facebook.