8:05 am | April 1, 2019 | Go to Source | Author:
NEW YORK — The hits to the New York Yankees‘ outfield depth keep coming.
One day after losing their season-opening series to the Baltimore Orioles, the Yankees announced Monday that they are putting outfielder Giancarlo Stanton on the 10-day injured list with a left biceps strain. He’s the third Yankees outfielder to go on the injured list this young season, joining Aaron Hicks (lower back) and Jacoby Ellsbury (hip/plantar fasciitis).
Outfielder Clint Frazier is being recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and will replace Stanton on the active roster. New York opens a series in the Bronx against the Detroit Tigers on Monday.
Stanton played in Sunday’s 7-5 loss, drawing three walks and striking out twice.
The former National League MVP is batting .250 with seven walks in three games this season. Last year, his first in pinstripes, Stanton appeared in 158 games. He battled through a hamstring injury part of the year as the Yankees went through another season of outfield attrition.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said over the weekend that Hicks, who received two cortisone shots in his back late in spring training, had finally begun resuming workouts. The center fielder has ramped up his core body activities, but he still hasn’t quite started baseball activities. Those could begin this week.
Whenever Hicks is able to resume his baseball work, he still will have to go through a “spring training” since he received so few at-bats before tightness in his back March 1 sidelined him. Hicks played in just four games this spring, making 10 plate appearances. It’s unclear how long his version of an extended spring training might take once he begins that.
Although Ellsbury joined the Yankees late in spring training at their facility in Tampa, Florida, he still has been slowly eased back into baseball activities after missing all of last season with a variety of injuries. The Yankees have not said how long they believe it will be before he could rejoin the big league club. Like Hicks, he has been rehabbing in Tampa.
In Frazier, the Yankees are adding a corner outfielder who had his own injury ordeal in 2018. It was during an early spring training game when Frazier hit his head while trying to catch a ball at the wall. He was diagnosed with a concussion, and had symptoms off and on throughout the season before he was fully shut down last August.
Frazier was cleared during the offseason to return to full activities, and he participated in spring training. In 18 games in the Grapefruit League, he batted .143 with a .473 OPS, three doubles and eight RBIs.
The Yankees’ front office was criticized in the offseason for never being a real player in the Bryce Harper free-agency sweepstakes, despite having recent problems with outfield depth. The team felt comfortable going into the season with the players it had. Last week, as the Yankees were breaking camp, they traded with the Rockies for outfielder Mike Tauchman, a mostly unknown yet versatile defender who had just 52 games of MLB experience.
A lefty-swinging outfielder who grew up wanting to one day wear pinstripes, Harper signed a 13-year, $330 million deal with the Phillies in February.
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