The Yankees placed Domingo German on the restricted list on Wednesday after he agreed to voluntarily submit to inpatient treatment for alcohol abuse, the team said in a statement.
General manager Brian Cashman would not reveal the details of the incident that led to the announcement, but he and manager Aaron Boone acknowledged that German has dealt with alcohol abuse issues in the past and that the most recent situation emerged on Tuesday.
Cashman said he does not expect German to pitch again this season.
“It’s a very serious issue that affects way too many people, unfortunately,” Cashman said shortly before the Yankees beat the Rays 7-2. “Hopefully the steps that are being taken today will really benefit him for the remaining part of his life, because it’s a very serious problem that you need to address head on. These treatment places are significant steps, hopefully towards helping him get the tools to solve it.”
After the game, Boone and Gerrit Cole said it was an emotional day in the clubhouse.
Around an hour before first pitch, Cashman told the team the news that German was going on the restricted list and the reasons behind it.
“It’s been tough,” Cole said. “It just affects you as a human being. You care about your teammates and you care about your teammates’ families. It’s a sad situation and you want the best for Domingo.”
Cashman said that the alcohol abuse issue had nothing to do with German being scratched from his start Monday.
The Yankees said that was because of armpit discomfort, though he was eventually cleared from that and pitched five innings in relief that night.
“That’s a completely separate issue,” Cashman said, adding that the way manager Aaron Boone described the situation, as armpit discomfort, was “100 percent accurate.”
The 30-year-old German, who is under contract through 2024, previously served an 81-game suspension in 2019 and 2020 for violating MLB’s joint domestic violence policy.
In 2021, The Athletic reported that German had been intoxicated the night that he became physically violent toward his then-girlfriend and now-wife.
This season, German has been through his share of highs and lows on the mound. He was suspended for 10 games in May after failing a foreign-substance check, but he also pitched a perfect game on June 28 against the Athletics.
The morning after he made history, when asked how he celebrated that night, German said that he saw teammates in the hotel lobby and wanted to stay out with them. But “for me, it’s important to make right choices and keep making right choices,” he said through an interpreter, so he spent the night celebrating on the phone with his family.
Whatever happened on Tuesday that led to German submitting to treatment, Cashman said he did not have knowledge of it until after the 6 p.m. trade deadline had passed.
“In some way, this goes back years,” Boone said of German’s battle with alcohol. “In a lot of ways, he’s been a good citizen to where that hasn’t come into play affecting his job. … My takeaway of all of it is just sad. Hope and pray that he gets the right kind of help that truly gets him going in the right direction for the rest of his life.”
Earlier in the day, it was evident that something was going on with German when Boone declined to reveal the Yankees’ pitching plans for the four-game series against the Astros that will begin Thursday.
Nestor Cortes was initially supposed to make a third rehab start on Wednesday night at Triple-A, but instead said he found out in the afternoon that he would be activated off the injured list to start in one of the games against Houston.
German’s normal day to pitch would have been Saturday, but the events Tuesday changed that plan.
“I’m not going to comment on the details, other than the fact that ground zero was [Tuesday], which led to today,” Cashman said. “The most important thing now … is that he has willingly and voluntarily gone to seek treatment to try to address the issues that are before him and are really important for him to deal with.”
