Yankees' Corey Kluber plays light game of catch but still likely out two months

On May 26, Corey Kluber was diagnosed with a subscapularis strain in his right shoulder.

At the time, the Yankees said the righthander likely would be out at least two months but that he planned to seek "second and third opinions."

That process concluded earlier this week with Kluber, who ended up seeing three specialists in addition to team physician Christopher Ahmad, still looking at a timeline of at least two months.

But Kluber, who initially was not going to pick up a ball for at least a month, has been cleared to resume throwing. And he did Friday afternoon, playing a light game of catch at the Stadium.

Beyond that, Aaron Boone didn’t provide much clarity regarding exactly what doctors have told the pitcher.

"He played catch today . . . and he will continue that, but I don’t think he’s necessarily getting ramped up right now," Boone said. "I know there will be catch play here for I’m assuming several days and then there’ll be these little checkpoints of, ‘OK, now do we graduate to the next thing?’ "

That graduation will depend solely, Boone said, on Kluber’s "pain tolerance" when it comes to the shoulder, in which he felt "tightness" during what turned out to be his last outing on May 25.

"He’s been asymptomatic, he’s felt good," Boone said.

Asked directly if the diagnosis remains a subscapularis strain, Boone hesitated.

"Somewhat, but I think it’s more of we’ve got a veteran pitcher with a lot of a lot of innings and it’s like, ‘Is this a chronic thing? Is it residual stuff? Is it an acute thing?’ " Boone said. "And I think because his physical evaluation continues to be so strong, to me it sounds like it’s a little gray."

Scary time for Nevin

Third base coach Phil Nevin, one of nine members of the Yankees' traveling party who tested positive for COVID-19 during the outbreak on the club that started coming to light May 11, became the last member of that group to return to the team. Nevin, not yet cleared to be on the field, was expected to be in the dugout Friday.

"Feel good compared to where I’ve been," said the 50-year-old Nevin, who required hospitalization after also ending up with a staph infection and lost 22 pounds.

Nevin was the first of the nine to test positive and one of two who experienced significant symptoms. Nevin has asthma, which made his situation even scarier, but it made him even more thankful to have received the vaccine.

"They’re convinced the vaccine kept the COVID out of my lungs," he said. "If that had been compromised and tacked on [to the staph infection], I was told it probably would not have been a very good outcome as far as the healing process."

The worst part of being quarantined was missing the big-league debut of his son, Ryan, on May 29 with the Orioles. Nevin has it written in his Yankees contract that he could leave the team whenever Ryan made his debut.

Said Nevin, "To not be there for that probably hurt the most."