Yankees appear to avoid worst-case scenario with Michael King’s injury
Michael King and the Yankees may have dodged the worst-case scenario with his elbow injury.
The Post’s Jon Heyman reported Tuesday that King’s ulnar collateral ligament is “said to look pretty good for a pitcher.”
That means King likely will only need surgery to repair the fractured right elbow he suffered while throwing a pitch during the Yankees’ win Friday at Baltimore. That surgery will sideline the right-hander for the rest of this season, but he should be ready for spring training next year.
The Yankees had feared there might be enough damage to King’s UCL to require Tommy John surgery, which would have kept him out almost certainly through 2023.
As it is, King’s injury was just the latest in some serious hits to the Yankees’ bullpen.
Chad Green is out following Tommy John surgery, and the Yankees are still awaiting the potential return of Zack Britton from elbow surgery he underwent last year. Miguel Castro also is out indefinitely with a strained right shoulder.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Loaisiga has yet to approach the effectiveness he showed during the 2021 season. He did, however, pitch a scoreless inning Tuesday in the Yankees’ 6-3 loss to the Mets in the opener of the Subway Series at Citi Field.
The Yankees have gotten a much-needed contribution from rookie right-hander Ron Marinaccio, who just returned from right shoulder inflammation and pitched 1 ²/₃ hitless, shutout innings Tuesday.
Marinaccio extended his scoreless streak to 14 appearances and 17 innings, in which he has allowed just one hit. He also hasn’t given up a hit in his last 10 outings, the longest streak by a Yankee since Tommy Kahnle had an 11-game streak in 2019.
Clarke Schmidt has shown promise in a variety of roles and has been pressed back into service in the bullpen after being built up as a starter with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. And Albert Abreu has displayed flashes of what the Yankees had hoped he would become this season, though he allowed a run on three hits in the eighth inning Tuesday night against the Mets.
Still, they’ll be asking a lot of the reliable veteran arms in the bullpen — including closer Clay Holmes, and left-handers Wandy Peralta and Lucas Luetge — though help potentially will be on the way before the Aug. 2 trade deadline.
Aroldis Chapman has been a shell of himself for nearly all of 2022, but he tossed another scoreless inning Tuesday and manager Aaron Boone said the former closer looks better than he has all season.
Aroldis Chapman has been a shell of himself for nearly all of 2022, but he tossed another scoreless inning Tuesday and and manager Aaron Boone said the former closer looks better than he has all season.
“The results have been up and down here the last five or six, but there have been a handful of good ones and tonight was obviously really good,’’ Boone said. “But I think if you just strip away everything and just watch him throw the ball, to me, it’s as good as he’s thrown the ball in about 12 months; going back to the first couple of months of last season. That’s encouraging.”
Domingo German, as expected, will start Wednesday for the Yankees. Boone had suggested that would be the case, but held off on making it official until Tuesday. He said the Yankees could have gone in a different direction because of their day off Monday, but “[German] was always gonna start.”
It figures to be another tough challenge for the right-hander, who pitched poorly in his season debut last Thursday in Houston, giving up five runs in three innings.
The right-hander hasn’t pitched effectively since 2019 and missed the first half of this season after being sidelined by right shoulder impingement.
Aaron Judge homered in the first inning (an estimated 423 feet at 112 mph), giving him five in his past five games and an MLB-leading 38 on the season.
He went 2-for-4 with a walk and is 16-for-29 (.552) with seven homers and 16 RBIs in his past eight games. He has had multiple hits in six of his last eight games and has driven in half of the Yankees’ runs (12 of 24) in their last five games.