Slow-recovering Jacoby Ellsbury could be done for the season
Jacoby Ellsbury of the Yankees looks on during batting practice before American League wild-card game against the Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 3, 2017. Credit: Jim McIsaac
CLEVELAND — It’s still a slow go for Jacoby Ellsbury, and it’s increasingly looking as if he might be a no-go.
The outfielder, who started the season on the disabled list with a right oblique strain and went on to experience a hip issue, a bout of plantar fasciitis and a problem with the sacroiliac joint in his back that required him to see a specialist a couple of weeks ago, still has not resumed baseball activities during his rehab in Tampa.
“He’s still dealing with some hip stuff, so he’s not doing baseball stuff as of yet,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Just trying to get him right.”
Boone declined to give a best-case scenario for when Ellsbury, 34, who signed a seven-year, $153-million deal before the 2014 season, might be ready.
“I don’t even want to speculate on it,” Boone said. “Because once baseball stuff started up, it could ramp up pretty quickly. But when that comes, I’m not sure.”
Sanchez to Scranton
Boone said Gary Sanchez (right groin strain), who steadily has been increasing his baseball activities this week, is likely to leave the team Saturday night and start a rehab assignment Sunday with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
“Everything’s going well,” Boone said.
Bad tipper
Luis Severino, who struck out a season-low one batter in an underwhelming performance Thursday night, indicated afterward that he thought he might have tipped his pitches, particularly his slider.
“That’s something we try to monitor all the time,” Boone said Friday. “I don’t know if it was necessarily that or they had some good plans and jumped on a couple of pitches. I don’t necessarily think that [tipping pitches was] the case.”
Summer slamming
The Yankees entered Friday with an MLB-best 26 homers in July, nine more than any other team (the Nationals were next with 17). Outfielders Aaron Hicks (five), Aaron Judge (four) and Brett Gardner (four) have totaled 13 homers, more than 20 entire teams.
