The Yankees announced that Ian Hamilton is hitting the injured list, but not with a traditional ailment, instead testing positive for COVID-19. He is being placed on the 7-day COVID-19 IL retroactive to May 19th with the Yankees moving some depth on their 40-man roster to get an arm up. Colby White, whom they selected off of waivers and placed in Double-A with the Somerset Patriots, was designated for assignment to create room for left-hander Clayton Andrews to join their active roster and provide bullpen depth.
Clayton Andrews has struggled with the Scranton RailRiders in Triple-A, pitching to a 6.60 ERA, but he does have an interesting arsenal and shouldn’t be up for long.
Ian Hamilton Placed on COVID-IL, Yankees Promote Southpaw
This has been a weird year for Ian Hamilton, who has seen a massive regression in strikeout rate (18.8%) but has remained effective regardless with a 3.18 ERA across 22.2 innings. While the right-hander has dealt with soreness and various other physical ailments throughout the season, it’s the coronavirus that sidelined him for what will likely be a short stint on the IL.
In his place, Clayton Andrews will come up and try to give the Yankees some innings, and the left-hander has a fastball-changeup mix with a sweeping slider that he throws primarily to left-handed batters. He can get strikeouts (27.7%) and groundballs (54.5%), but command has been an issue for him as he’s walked a bunch of batters (18.5%) and it’s resulted in an ugly start to his season.
The Yankees acquired the 27-year-old in the offseason, but they designated him for assignment as a way to clear room on their 40-man roster during the season. Since he didn’t get claimed while on irrevocable waivers, the Yankees were able to keep him, and to his credit, the numbers are trending in the right direction for him. Over his last 13 innings, Andrews has a 32% strikeout rate and 3.46 ERA, lowering his walk rate and having better results, but we’ll see how it translates to the Major League level.
Across four outings with the Brewers in his brief MLB career, Andrews has a 27.00 ERA and 14.36 FIP, and with Tommy Kahnle likely being activated this week, we may not see the left-hander for long on this roster.