With the New York Yankees returning Luke Voit on Tuesday against the Kansas City Royals, they finally gained back a significant portion of their offense and a player who led the MLB in 2020 with 22 homers. However, Voit was pulled after a few innings of work as skipper Aaron Boone tried to mitigate any further setbacks.
However, with the Yankees desperately trying to extract a win against the Royals, they ended up blowing it in the eighth inning, as Kansas City rallied, scoring three runs due to a poor outing from Jonathan Loaisiga. He gave up five hits and four earned runs over 0.2 innings after a solid performance from Gerrit Cole, where he lasted 7.0 innings and allowed three hits and two runs.
In the defeat, starting third baseman Gio Urshela was hit by a pitch in the right shin, and while he stayed in the game, it was clear he was progressively getting worse, forcing Boone to extract him.
After being plunked in the right leg, Urshela stayed down briefly before walking to first base but was clearly favoring his left leg, indicating something potentially more serious.
Hopefully, nothing too serious for Gio:
“We’ll see,†Boone told reporters. “He got hit by the pitch and I think it just kind of stiffened up. Obviously, a little bit of a cold, wet night. We’ll see how he’s doing.â€
In all likelihood, Urshela is probably dealing with a serious bruise, which could keep them out for a few days but otherwise shouldn’t constitute an injury list spell. In the defeat, Gio recorded two hits over four at-bats, elevating his average to .273 this year.
The Yankees will take on the Royals on Wednesday evening in an attempt to get back in the win column after winning five of their last six games prior to the loss on Tuesday.