Yankees Injuries: Didi Gregorius Expected To Return In June
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — There's finally some good injury news in the Bronx.
Didi Gregorius is projected to return to the New York Yankees next month, a much faster recovery from Tommy John surgery than was expected last year.
FLASHBACK: Yankees SS Didi Gregorius Has Tommy John Surgery, Return Uncertain
Gregorius is scheduled to play shortstop on Monday at extended spring training in Tampa, Florida, his first game action since surgery on Oct. 17 to replace a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow.
"It's a good step. We're getting there. Everything feels really good," Gregorius said Saturday after eight plate appearances during a simulated game in Tampa. "You've got to trust the whole thing, even though I'm impatient because I want to work. But it is what it is. Got to go with what they're saying and go with their schedule."
Manager Aaron Boone does not expect Gregorius will need the equivalent of a full spring training, which is about six weeks.
"I think it will be shorter," Boone said Saturday. "He's been doing so much already as far as getting live ABs (at-bats), doing all this work. So he's a little further down the road than he would be at the start of spring training."
Gregorius hit .268 with a career-high 27 homers and 86 RBI last season. He injured the elbow while making a throw from left field after a ball bounced off Fenway Park's Green Monster during Game 2 of the AL Division Series at Boston last Oct. 6. When the Yankees revealed the injury six days later, general manager Brian Cashman would specify only "sometime next summer" for Gregorius' return.
Gregorius' timetable will be easier to project once he starts a minor league injury rehabilitation assignment, which has a 20-day maximum. New York's plan for him indicates a June return.
"If everything goes well, I think that's fair," Boone said.
The shortstop's speedy recovery is some of the best injury news the team has received all season. New York's replacement at shortstop, former All-Star Troy Tulowitzki, hasn't even seen the field since April 3 due to a calf strain.
The team is still missing sluggers Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and now Miguel Andujar - who will undergo season-ending surgery on his right shoulder.
Stanton is scheduled to start an injury rehab assignment for Class-A Tampa on Monday night.
In other Yankees injury news, left-hander James Paxton is scheduled to throw a third bullpen session Sunday and could be activated during next week's trip to Baltimore and Kansas City. Paxton has not pitched since May 3 because of left knee inflammation that required a cortisone injection the following day. He also threw bullpens on May 15 and Friday,
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)