Hughes won't make scheduled start Monday

TORONTO -- Phil Hughes won't start Monday after all.

The righthander, scheduled to start Monday's makeup game against the Twins at Yankee Stadium, experienced back spasms after his bullpen session here late Friday afternoon, causing Joe Girardi to move A.J. Burnett into Hughes' slot.

"We don't know if he'll throw Tuesday or Wednesday, I can't really tell you," Girardi said of Hughes after yesterday's victory over the Blue Jays. "He's better today. We're just going to move him back to make sure his back is OK."

Hughes (5-5, 6.00) said "it's happened before," referring to the spasms, but Friday was the first time in three years.

He underwent extensive heat treatment Friday and yesterday.

"I told them I'd probably be good to go by Monday but they didn't want to chance it," Hughes said.

Girardi almost always says when a player has a back issue that he'll err on the side of caution because "backs can be tricky."

Neither Girardi, who was told of the spasms by the training staff Friday, nor Hughes sounded concerned about it. Not yet anyway.

"It was bad yesterday, it's a lot better today," Hughes said. "I've been doing a lot of treatment on it so it, I assume, will be really good by tomorrow. Hopefully enough to play catch with. I would have assumed by Monday I'd be fine but we have so many guys here that it doesn't hurt to just give it an extra day."

Girardi still has not set his rotation for the four-game series against the Rays, but he has said CC Sabathia would definitely make his start on regular rest, meaning the lefthander will start one of the games in Wednesday's doubleheader.