The hits keep on coming on the injury front for the Yankees, as they welcomed Clay Holmes back from the COVID IL on Monday, but the reciprocal move was placing Zack Britton on the 10-day IL with a left elbow strain.
“On Saturday he had some inflammation in there and wasn’t available, and yesterday he had an MRI that showed a small strain in there,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said before Monday’s game in Atlanta. “We’re in the process of getting a number of opinions to make sure we’re in sync with next steps. We’ll probably know more in a few days.”
The Yankees and Britton aren’t quite sure when the injury may have actually happened, as Britton didn’t really feel anything even during his recent struggles. Regardless, it’s another setback in a tough season for Britton, who didn’t begin his season until June 12 after contracting COVID and having elbow surgery this offseason, and also missed three weeks in June and July with a hamstring strain.
“We’ll see what we have there and what the best course of action is to get him moving forward, but right now, I just feel for Zack,” Boone said. “I know how hard he’s worked to get back, and his last couple outings felt like he built some good momentum. I know he’s frustrated, but right now we want to get all the info and put him in a situation to do what’s best for him.”
The Yankees also opened a spot on the 40-man roster for Holmes by moving Miguel Andujar, who was scratched from his rehab assignment last week, to the 60-day injured list.
“He’s still feeling a little something in that hand and wrist so we shut him down,” Boone said of Andujar. “He saw the doctor again and there’s nothing significant other than fighting through some pain tolerance, but we’ll shut him down a few days and let medicine take over, and hopefully start up a rehab assignment again end of week.”
Andujar has hit .253 in 45 games this season, but was placed on the IL July 10 (retroactive to July 7) with a left wrist strain, and his move to the 60-day means he is ineligible to return until September 5.
The Yankees did have two pieces of good news though: Gio Urshela, who was 3-for-4 in his first rehab game at Double-A Somerset, will be off entirely Monday and play again Tuesday, and could return for the Yankees’ series in Oakland starting Thursday if all goes well.
Gleyber Torres will also be with Somerset this week, and he’ll be ramping up activity there in hopes of beginning a rehab of his own late in the week.
“He is off today as well, he will go to Somerset tomorrow to ramp up there. Tee and toss tomorrow, into BP and live high-velocity stuff,” Boone said. “By the weekend we hope to be in a position to start a rehab assignment.”
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