New York Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman isn’t sure yet on the status of first baseman Mark Teixeira, but he is “leaning personally” towards placing the veteran first baseman on the 15-day disabled list, per a tweet from the Newark Star-Ledger’s Andy McCullough. There is no official word yet, though, from the Yankees organization on whether or not Teixeira will indeed hit the DL, and that’s because things are still quite cloudy right now. However, the news that Cashman is leaning towards tabling Tex is telling early on, but more information is definitely needed for the Yanks.
Teixeira left Saturday’s game against the Los Angeles Angels with a wrist injury in the fourth inning after a couple of at-bats. He missed the first two months of the season with a right wrist injury, so the aggravation of that injury has left the Yankees in dire straights over their first baseman’s swing. The Yankees have dealt with unfortunate injuries all season, so they will be crossing their fingers that Teixeira is good to go.
An MRI showed that Tex only has inflammation, so it sounds like he has avoided a very serious setback, but this is still bad news for the Yankees. The Yanks can either play it conservative and toss Teixeira on the DL, or they can just give him some rest for the next few days before bringing him back into the fold. There are a lot of options for the Yankees, but he best one is to avoid throwing him back into the fire soon.
The 33-year-old switch-hitter was given a cortisone shot, and we should know more on him tomorrow, Wednesday at the latest. Teixeira might still need to hit the disabled list despite the fact that there is only inflammation, because inflammation is still a serious thing for a guy who missed two months of the season with an injury in the same part of his body. At the age of 33 and with that contract, the Yankees and Cashman aren’t going to be rushing this guy, and it sounds like Cashman wants to play things cautiously with Teixeira, based on his leaning towards placing the 1B on the DL despite there only being inflammation.
Teixeira hasn’t been playing well since being activated off of the DL, even though his power has certainly been there. His contact hitting has been awful, and it just seems like Teixeira needs to get back into the swing of things (pardon the pun). We’ll see what the Yankees do and how Teixeira progresses, but I’m inclined to think that Cashman is correct in having a slight inclination to want to place Mark Teixeira on the 15-day disbled list.