The injury that will keep New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira out of the lineup until May at the earliest is not a wrist strain, as originally reported, but a partially torn tendon sheath that could potentially require season-ending surgery.
As of now, the Yankees are still expecting Teixeira to heal without needing an operation and to rejoin the club after about 8-10 weeks of healing time.
But Teixeira, who arrived at spring camp Sunday morning with his right wrist in a cast-like splint and will rehab there for the rest of the spring, raised the possibility that his absence could be longer than that.
“This is one of those things I can’t come back too early,’’ he said. “We saw last season when I tried to play too early [with a calf injury] what happened. If I try to play too early from this we could miss the whole season, and we don’t want that. I don’t know if it’s the beginning of May, the end of May, the beginning of June, I don’t know when it is but we got a whole bunch of season left and the time that really matters is the playoffs.’‘
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman was surprised to hear Teixeira say the injury was to the tendon sheath, a covering that keeps the wrist tendon in place, rather than to the tendon itself. He called Yankees team doctor Chris Ahmad, who told him the injury was a partially torn tendon sheath but a stable tendon, an injury that generally heals without surgery.
“Ahmad told me if he had a fully torn sheath, it’s automatic surgery, and if he had a partially torn sheath with an unstable tendon, it’s automatic surgery,’’ Cashman said. “This is a best-case scenario injury, the only one that can heal without surgery.’‘
Repoz
Posted: March 17, 2013 at 04:01 PM |
12 comment(s)
Login to Bookmark
Tags:
yankees
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
1. cardsfanboyIf Teixeira really has a torn sheath, I'm surprised he isn't just getting surgery. Even Ortiz took several seasons to get his power and bat speed back after skipping surgery for a similar injury. I can't recall a player with this kind of injury doing well with just rehab. Isn't this the injury that resulted in Bautista getting surgery at the end of last season?
A torn sheath does better explain Cashman's attempts to sign guys like Lee and Chipper though. They're going to have to make some kind of trade to shore up first base now though; Dan Johnson and Juan Rivera can't possibly last the season as the solution at 1B. I guess theoretically they could bridge the gap until Rodriguez returns and pushes Youkilis across the diamond, but even expecting one of Tex or ARod to make it back for most of the season seems foolish at this point.
Brokeback Mountain 2, starring Mark Teixeira and Travis Hafner.
Yes. The Jays also tried to treat it with rest, but Bautista re-aggravated the injury when he came off the DL, and then had to have surgery.
Or move Jeter over there and find a shortstop, dot dot dot.
I love how Yankees players are now just conditioned to believe they will make the playoffs.
Fans and media buy in also.
The Seligification of the playoffs has devalued the regular season so.
Or they go the other way, and sell off Granderson, Kuroda, Hughes, and Cano (if he's not being reasonable about an extension) in July.
Ehhh, Juan might hang around for a few more years after this season. ;-)
Michael Kay thought he retired ten years ago.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main