With excellent outings from Gerrit Cole and Jhony Brito, the New York Yankees took the first series of the season two games to one against the San Francisco Giants in Yankee Stadium. They did it with lots of injuries and absences on the active roster.
Let’s see how the injured players are progressing. Fortunately, there is good news to report all around.
Let’s start with star pitcher Carlos Rodon. Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters that the next step in his recovery from a mild forearm strain is throwing another two-up bullpen, with hitters standing in the box for the second inning.
If he avoids setbacks and can keep ramping up, a return in late April is realistic.
Then, we have defensive wizard Harrison Bader. The Gold Glover in center field suffered an oblique strain before the season started and was given a multiple weeks timetable. Specialists performed another MRI just a couple of days ago, and that one showed considerable improvement.
“He’s doing really well. He was swimming in the pool yesterday, he’ll continue to do that this weekend,” Boone said, per SI.com. “If that continues to progress he could start to get a bat in his hand as early as next week or as early as early in the week and start introducing some throwing and things like that.”
Last year’s postseason star is getting closer to being able to swing a bat, which is the main obstacle to completing his rehab.
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Yankees pitchers are trending in the right direction
Starting pitcher Luis Severino, who suffered a lat strain, is already in the arm build-up phase, as he threw on Friday and Saturday.
Per Boone, it was really important he was able to throw in consecutive days without issues.
“It was good that he came back in today after throwing yesterday,” he said. “It was light-throwing yesterday but came back in asymptomatic today, which is good news, so hopefully onward and upward.”
The bullpen is also a bit decimated at the moment, but both Lou Trivino and Tommy Kahnle are trending in the right direction.
The former Oakland Athletics’ righty, who went down with an elbow strain in spring training, is also throwing and hasn’t had a setback. Boone did warn that he could take a little while to return, given the nature of the injury.
As for Kahnle, he recently received a cortisone shot for his right biceps tendinitis. The hope is that if all goes well, he will be able to start throwing this week.