Luis Severino's return to Yankees delayed at least a month

BUFFALO – A team desperately in need of some good news didn’t get any over the weekend.

The MRI taken on Luis Severino’s injured right groin, an injury that forced the righthander out of his rehab start Saturday with High-A Hudson Valley, showed a lower Grade 2 strain.

Severino, whom the Yankees expected back to provide a boost for the rotation just before or just after the All-Star break, will push his return back by at least a month, Aaron Boone said Tuesday afternoon before the Yankees started a three-game series against the Blue Jays.

The 27-year-old Severino, making his second rehab start in his recovery from the Tommy John surgery he underwent in late February 2020, had to be assisted off the field after throwing a pitch in the second inning of Hudson Valley’s game at Brooklyn.

Boone said he did not believe the injury was caused by Severino altering anything with his delivery to protect his arm.

"I think it's a little bit of just one of those things that can happen from time to time is my hope on this," Boone said. "There's nothing to my knowledge to this point that we've identified that (suggests) mechanically he was out of whack. In fact, one of the good things I think about Sevy’s rehab process over the last year and a half is he really is in tremendous shape and has gotten his body as strong and as efficient as (its) probably ever been. So at this point it seems like it was a little bit of just a freak thing that can happen in the heat of competition."

It was yet another setback for Severino, who hasn’t thrown a pitch in the big leagues since signing a four-year, $40-million extension in mid-February 2020, which at the last moment avoided an arbitration hearing with the Yankees neither party wanted any part of. Less than two weeks later he was sidetracked with the injury that ultimately led to his Tommy John procedure.

"Obviously, frustrating for everyone to just know how hard Sevy’s worked to put himself (in position to return)," Boone said Sunday morning. "I know what a long road and how hard Sevy’s worked to get to this point. Hopefully it’s something that’s not too big of a setback."

Extra bases

Luke Voit, who began a rehab assignment last weekend with Triple-A Scranton as he recovers from a Grade 2 right oblique strain, was transferred to Double-A Somerset Tuesday. The expectation is he could be back within the week….Aaron Judge, scratched from Sunday’s game in Philadelphia with back spasms, returned to the lineup Tuesday and went 0-for-5 with three strikeouts.