The Yankees could have used another big bat in their lineup during Thursday’s Opening Day loss to the Blue Jays, and they hope to have one back soon in Luke Voit, who had surgery to repair a partially torn meniscus earlier this week.
Voit, who limped out to the first base line with a crutch under his right shoulder when rosters were introduced before the season opener, elected to have the surgery rather than go through season-long treatment so he could come back feeling 100 percent, and manager Aaron Boone hopes that will happen sometime next month.
“I would expect him back hopefully sometime in May,” Boone told reporters prior to Saturday’s game. “But we’ll see how these weeks unfold. Everything went well with the surgery I think as expected. He’s feeling good here in the early days…already up on the bike. Hopefully if things go smoothly, we’re looking at a 4-to-6-week kind of scenario.”
Six weeks would put Voit back in the lineup around late May, so a more optimistic outlook would have him back in about a month. Jay Bruce is currently manning first base while last year’s major league home run leader recovers from the surgery before picking up baseball activities in a few weeks.
“I know no baseball activities for at least three weeks after the surgery, so we’ll just see how he builds up from there,” Boone said.
Lefty reliever Justin Wilson is much closer to a return after being sidelined with shoulder tightness, having faced batters prior to Saturday’s game. Boone’s initial hope was to have Wilson back for the first road series of the season against Tampa late next week, and it looks like that is still the outlook.
“He threw live today actually,” Boone said. “He threw to hitters about 45 minutes ago, and that went really well. Really liked what u saw. Thought it was coming out really good.”
The Yanks will get another southpaw reliever back on Sunday when Aroldis Chapman finishes his suspension for throwing a pitch near Michael Brosseau’s head in a game against the Rays last year, but with Zack Britton still out for the foreseeable future, having Wilson back in the bullpen will be a boost for the Yankees.
“He’s pretty much ready to go,” Boone said. “Obviously being on the 10-day he’s not eligible until I think after the off day coming into Tampa. He’ll have another live BP around Tuesday just so he’s ready to go when he’s eligible to come off. But he’s doing really well.”
The outlook for Clarke Schmidt isn’t as optimistic, as the team’s top pitching prospect still hasn’t begun throwing after suffering an extensor strain on Feb. 22. The hope was for Schmidt to begin throwing a few weeks after the injury, but so far, he is still experiencing mild symptoms and remains shut down.
“Still trying to get to that point of completely asymptomatic,” Boone said, also saying he was not alarmed that Schmidt still wasn’t asymptomatic by this point. “I keep saying it’s any day now, and that is the hope, when he can start begin a throwing program.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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