The New York Yankees’ chances of winning the AL East took a major hit Friday, as further tests on first baseman Mark Teixeira revealed a leg fracture. The slugger is now expected to miss the rest of the season due to the injury.
Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News shared word of the latest setback Friday afternoon. Jack Curry of the YES Network provided confirmation from Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and noted the expected recovery time is three months.
Teixeira originally got injured by fouling a ball off his shin against the Minnesota Twins on Aug. 17. He missed seven games before trying to return, but he appeared in just two before going back to the bench.
He stated that even if the team hadn’t tried to play the waiting game and had shut him down immediately he wouldn’t have been back by the World Series, per Daniel Barbarisi of the Wall Street Journal.
The Yankees placed him on the 15-day disabled list last week. On Thursday, the infielder confirmed he was scheduled to undergo more tests due to the lingering problem, per Andrew Marchand of ESPN.
“Yeah, in my mind, I’m playing,” Teixeira said. “But, we tried to push it the first time and knew it wasn’t ready. So we have to figure out how much healing’s occurred and when I can push it again. For me, I’d like to go out and try to run today, but, doctors are saying it’s not healed enough yet so, it’s just a lot worse than we first expected.”
Teixeira was enjoying a terrific season before the injury occurred. He had blasted 31 home runs with a .357 on-base percentage in 111 games. It re-established him as one of the team’s most important players after a three-year stretch where he didn’t top 25 homers.
Buster Olney of ESPN put Teixeira’s injury in perspective, given the first baseman’s past injury issues:
It’s a major loss for the Yankees lineup, and Greg Bird will be called upon to pick up most of the slack. He’s played reasonably well so far, hitting five home runs in 24 games, but how he’ll perform as opposing pitchers get more information on him is a question mark.
New York currently trails the Toronto Blue Jays by 1.5 games in the division. Keeping pace with the powerful Jays will be an uphill battle without Teixeira. The silver lining for the Yankees is the fact that they are 5.5 games clear of the third-place Minnesota Twins in the wild-card race.
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