By WFAN.com
Yankees manager Aaron Boone joined WFAN's Mike Francesa Friday in his weekly spot. The Yankees have some key injuries as they look to get some guys back. Boone gave a few updates, including Didi Gregorius, who could be back soon.
"We weren't sure initially. Didi is such a tough guy that we just felt like it was for sure going to be something that was going to be five, six, seven days, whatever. With us having a short bench as it is, to go another guy short would have been really difficult," Boone said Friday. "We thought it was the best thing. He's here in Baltimore today, went out and played catch. He's walking better. He got on the bike today. Hopefully we get through this weekend and get back to New York and he can start hitting then potentially it could be a short stint for him. We will evaluate where we are at with him probably on Monday."
The Yankees lineup has badly missed Aaron Judge, and it may be a bit longer until he returns to the lineup.
"Judge continues to get a little bit better. It's a fracture...when he gets to that point to where he's not feeling any pain as his end range of motion then we get a bat in his hand and we start to move. I would say the one good thing about this injury is that it hasn't kept him from keeping his conditioning. He's been able to run, do his lower half work out, he's even been able to do his upper body work out. From a conditioning standpoint he's in a pretty good place. It's just a matter of when he is finally able to get a bat in his hand, building up that endurance that allows you to be a major league hitter."
Aroldis Chapman hit the DL with some right knee tendinitis, which he has dealt with all year and will have to deal with whenever he does return from the DL.
"Honestly, this is something he has kind of dealt with throughout the year. It's just the other night it got to point from a pain standpoint that he had to do something about it. This is something even with a few weeks off here, he'll have to deal with down the stretch and hopefully a long run in the postseason, but he's done that well really all season long as it is. There are games where you would see him move around and you would see him limp and it looked bad, but those were also some of his best games, where he looked his best."
Finally, Gary Sanchez will begin a rehab assignment tomorrow, and should be back on the Yankees soon. The catcher has been out for a month with a strained right groin.
"My plan is he is good to go. We've been careful. We've made sure he's passed a lot of protocols to get all the way back. I feel like his conditioning is in the best place it's been all year. We feel like as he gets ready to start this rehab assignment tomorrow, we feel like physically he's been in the best place he's been all year. We'll take our time and give him the week to get some at bats, to get to triple-A, to catch back-to-back days. Once we get him up here, I plan on him being a guy that we can lean on and that should be in a really good place physically and handle a nice workload."
