Luis Severino is finally ready to make his 2021 MLB debut.
The Yankees officially activated Severino off the 60-day injured list on Monday, making room for the righty on the 40-man roster by releasing RHP Sal Romano, who had been placed on the IL over the weekend with a sprained finger. They had an open 28-man roster spot after optioning RHP Clarke Schmidt to Triple-A following Sunday’s game.
“We’re really excited, and I’m excited for Sevy, too,” manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s been a long road and he’s gotten close a couple times over the last couple months, but knowing how hard he’s worked, and I know he’s excited to be back.”
Severino signed a four-year, $40 million deal with the Yankees prior to 2019 that bought out his four arbitration years, but he has thrown just 20 1/3 innings so far in nearly three seasons. Sevy missed most of 2019 with right shoulder inflammation and a lat strain, returning in September to throw 12 innings over three September starts, and then 8 1/3 more in two postseason outings.
However, that’s all so far, as an arm injury cut his initial spring training short in 2020, and he ended up missing all of 2020 after undergoing Tommy John surgery. He was on track to return from that sometime earlier this season, but a pair of setbacks – a groin injury in June and then shoulder soreness in August – delayed the comeback.
Severino returns to the Yankees without going out on a third rehab assignment, as with only 12 games left to go, he has been brought back to help a bullpen that has been incredibly taxed this season and is missing two of its biggest guns.
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“We’d love to get him in here one of these first couple days to get him going, but we’re down to 12 games and we know how important they are,” Boone said. “He could find himself in the highest leverage situations, or a multi-inning role. We feel like we have a really good pitcher we got to add to the mix today and we’ll treat it as such.”
But after almost two full years and most of the last three off, what will Yankees fans see from Sevy?
“He’s very similar. He’s worked on his changeup and added kind of a cutter/slider hybrid to his repertoire,” Boone said, “but he’s very similar, and physically he’s throwing the ball really well right now, it’s strong coming out.”
The Yankees are on the outside looking in at the playoff race as of Monday, but at the very least, they hope to have Sevy get his feet wet in big-league games this September in preparation to return to the rotation in 2021, similar to what they did when Jordan Montgomery returned from his Tommy John surgery a few years ago.
“I’ve been looking forward to this all year, and if they want me to hit, throw, catch, I don’t really care,” Severino said Friday before the Yankees’ win over the Indians. “I feel game-ready. A lot of different situations happened, but hopefully this is the last time.”
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