The aftershock of Masahiro Tanaka getting hit in the head by a scary line drive Saturday was still felt a day later at Yankee Stadium, but the news on the right-hander was encouraging for his teammates and manager.
While Tanaka was diagnosed with a mild concussion after being struck by a Giancarlo Stanton bullet — which James Paxton said left the bat at 112 mph — during a simulated game, he returned to the stadium Sunday and has been symptom-free since going to the hospital Saturday night, according to manager Aaron Boone.
“Feel really good about where he is,” Boone said after Sunday’s workouts. “He came in about noon or 12:30 today and was in really good spirits. Got a good night’s sleep, no loss of appetite. I think all the signs are pointing that he really dodged a bullet there. So we’re encouraged where he is, but we’ll take it day by day. Hopefully it’s not something that’ll be too long.”
Tanaka, who remains in the concussion protocol, was “walking around, acting like his normal self,” Brett Gardner said.
Boone said he hoped to have Tanaka available for the first week of the season — the Yankees are scheduled to open July 23 — but didn’t want to get ahead of himself with the tricky nature of concussions.
“I don’t want to speculate too much because any time you go into the concussion protocol, and even though everything’s looking positive right now, you still want to get through these days and make sure he’s symptom-free and able to do everything from an athletic standpoint without generating any symptoms,” Boone said.
Paxton was the only pitcher to throw a simulated game Sunday and he did so with an L-screen in front of the mound. He took the preventative action with Saturday’s frightening incident in mind.
“After [Saturday], seeing that happen, I just wanted to play it safe,” Paxton said. “Especially first time out there, just wanted to see how I felt, getting things going a little bit. What happened yesterday was so scary. Luckily it doesn’t happen very often. … Next time I think it’ll be more of a sim game setting so the screen won’t be out there. But yeah, especially after yesterday, it was a conscious decision just to have it out there for safety.”