Yankees don’t have timetable for Jacoby Ellsbury’s return

Jacoby Ellsbury’s tight right hip is improving, but the Yankees still don’t have a timetable for when he might return to the lineup.

“I feel it when I walk,” Ellsbury said before Sunday night’s game. “But it does feel better than yesterday.”

Not good enough, however, for the centerfielder to do much in the way of baseball activities. Ellsbury did some light work on an exercise bike Sunday but otherwise did no more than get treatment.

“They haven’t given me a timetable,” said Ellsbury, who left Friday night’s game in the second inning after tweaking the hip rounding third base in the first inning.

Ellsbury had been one of the few Yankees showing some improvement at the plate in recent weeks, hitting .302 (16-for-53) with a .373 on-base percentage in his previous 15 games. He said he hopes to avoid a stint on the disabled list, though that can’t be ruled out.

“I think if you see after five or six days he’s not really improving,” Joe Girardi said, “I think [a DL stint] would probably make sense.”

Nova set

Ivan Nova, slated to start Monday night in place of the injured CC Sabathia, said it took him about a week to get over losing the fifth-starter battle to the veteran lefthander in spring training.

“After that, I said I just have to accept it,” Nova said. “What can you do? After that first week, I had to forget about what happened in spring training and move on.”

Nova is 1-1 with a 5.14 ERA in six relief appearances. It’s an unfamiliar role for the 29-year-old, who had been almost exclusively a starter in his Yankees career before this season.

“I want to be in the rotation, but that’s nothing I can control,” Nova said. “I just have to go out and do my job.”

Nova, not yet stretched out, will be on a pitch count of about 75, Girardi said.