The Yankees announced less than an hour before Aaron Boone’s weekly spot on Carton & Roberts that outfielder Aaron Hicks will have surgery on the torn tendon sheath in his left wrist, and will be out indefinitely.
So, when Boone joined Craig & Evan, that was one of the first thoughts on their mind – and the best Boone could say about Hicks’ absence is that it will be “months” before he returns.
“He’s flying back to Arizona tomorrow to have the surgery there, and they’re in the process of scheduling that for some time this week,” Boone said. “We’ll have a better idea of the diagnosis at that point. It’s too early to speculate (if it’s season-ending), but I know it’s going to be months.”
What Boone had told the assembled media on Zoom just before that is that anti-inflammatory medications didn’t subside Hicks’ symptoms as the team hoped, and even Hicks isn’t sure if this is something that has been building long-term.
“Who knows when this thing first happened, whether it’s been months or years; every now and then, something would flare up on him, but it usually went away,” Boone said. “I think it just started to become now a consistent issue for him this time, as it continued to linger. I don’t think he’s in a lot of pain but he definitely feels it when he’s swinging. It doesn’t allow him to swing the bat the way he needs to swing the bat.”
Surgery is “the next right step for Aaron to hopefully put this behind him,” but where does that leave a banged-up Yankees outfield, especially in center field, where the team had three strong options on Opening Day and is now down to Brett Gardner and mix-and-match.
“Obviously it’s not ideal; at the start of the season with Tauchman on the roster we had a plethora of really good center fielders, but right now it’s Gardy,” Boone said. “I don’t know what could happen outside the organization, but inside, we can call someone up if we get in a punch, and I feel comfortable putting Tyler Wade out there or sliding Clint Frazier over in a pinch. I don’t think I’d do that with Aaron Judge right now, but we’ll see. We can’t run Gardy out there nine innings every day and run him into the ground.”
The issue there? Wade is an infielder by trade, Frazier is dealing with a neck issue and wasn’t in Friday’s lineup despite saying he is “good to go,” and Ryan LaMarre, who was called up when Giancarlo Stanton went on the IL, left Wednesday’s game with a hamstring injury and is on the IL as well.
At Triple-A, both Greg Allen and Trey Amburgey are on the IL, leaving Estevan Florial – who is on the 40-man roster – as the top choice, but only if he can play every day, it seems.
“That’s a delicate balance there; he’s a guy we think has a very bright future and high ceiling, but with the circumstances of the last few years with COVID and injures cutting into his development, he needs to play every day,” Boone said. “The fact he’s healthy and playing, he’s someone we’re watching closely, and we may have to tap into that if it’s a big enough need.
There’s a lot of value in him playing every day, but if you get up against it, sometimes you have to do some things.”
One thing he may not do? Deploy Stanton, who is progressing well and should be ready to return Tuesday, in the outfield anytime soon.
“The last couple days have gone well as he has ramped up. I’m sure he’ll have to go through and do some more extensive running, and we’ll see what the weekend brings, but he’s close,” Boone said of Stanton. “But (the injury) definitely puts that thought (of Stanton in the outfield) on pause for me, at least initially. I wouldn’t say it eliminates it altogether, but in the short term, when we get him back, I don’t plan on putting him there anytime soon.”
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