Yankees’ Greg Bird scratched with soreness in right foot

TAMPA, Fla. — Greg Bird didn’t make it through spring training completely healthy after all.

Bird was scratched from Saturday afternoon’s split-squad game in Kissimmee against the Braves with soreness in the same area of his right foot that needed surgery last season. And in discussing his promising but oft-injured first baseman, a somewhat somber Brian Cashman didn’t exude optimism.

“I’m worried about it, to be honest,” the general manager said after his club’s other split-squad game, this one against the Blue Jays at Steinbrenner Field. “I’m not sure what we’re dealing with, but when Greg, when he can’t tee it up, it’s a problem for us because he’s a vital member of our organization. But we’re deep and we have other people that can pick up the slack.”

There were some answers later Saturday, but Bird’s prognosis still is far from clear.

After returning from Kissimmee, Bird was examined by the club’s orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Daniel Murphy, and late Saturday afternoon, a CT scan and MRI showed “right foot inflammation,” the Yankees said in a release. They said Bird will be evaluated by foot specialist Dr. Martin O’Malley on Monday in New York.

Aaron Boone said the report he received from bench coach Josh Bard, who managed the club in Kissimmee, was that Bird’s foot was “really bothering him” during batting practice Saturday morning.

“[Bard] said, ‘We just scratched Birdie because he was in some pain with the foot,’ ” Boone said.

Bird entered Saturday hitting .154 with a .267 on-base percentage and one homer in 18 games in spring training, but all indications were that he was healthy, and Cashman said he “hadn’t been getting treatment or anything of that nature.”

Cashman said an issue started to crop up in the latter stages of Friday’s game against the Red Sox.

“He did say he’s had some discomfort, a little bit off and on,” he said. “Yesterday he said as he ramped up baseball activities to nine innings, it started to rear its ugly head.”

Neil Walker, recently signed to a free-agent deal to play primarily at second base but also serve as first-base insurance, started at first in Saturday’s game in Tampa. Though he has started only eight games there in his career, he’ll be an option if Bird misses time.

Tyler Austin, a reserve first baseman/outfielder who was sent to minor-league camp Wednesday, also would be a strong candidate to be named to the 25-man roster. Backup catcher Austin Romine is capable of playing first. Third-base prospect Miguel Andujar recently began playing some first base in minor-league camp, but he would not be an early-season consideration.

“You go with what you’ve got,” Cashman said of possibly looking outside the organization if there is bad news regarding Bird. “Obviously, Neil Walker’s import here recently becomes even that much more beneficial. Tyler Austin had a really good camp. It’s important to have depth. You’d rather not rely on it, but we have some depth we can turn to.”

Meanwhile, it’s more frustration for Bird, limited to 94 big-league games since his major-league debut late in 2015, when he hit 11 homers and drove in 31 runs in 157 at-bats and had the Yankees, to use a Cashman phrase, “dreaming on” him.

But soon came offseason surgery to repair a labrum tear in his right shoulder that cost Bird all of 2016. In the final game of a powerful 2017 spring training in which he hit eight homers to lead the Grapefruit League, Bird fouled a ball off his right ankle. What initially was diagnosed as a severe bone bruise eventually required surgery.

“Obviously not what we expected to be talking about today,” Cashman said. “Hopefully if he’s going to be down, it won’t be long, but we’ll fill in the blanks when we have the answers to the remaining questions.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.