Updated (11:20 a.m.): The news on Mark Teixeira grew considerably worse this morning as the Yanks’ slugger returned to Tampa with his diagnosis. What had originally been called a strained right wrist is in fact an injury to his right tendon sheath, he told reporters. The Yanks’ first baseman isn’t going to rush back and discussed the possibility that he could be out until early June, nearly a month longer than first expected.
Later on, Brian Cashman explained that Tex’s injury is, according to Chad Jennings, a “partially torn sheath with a stable tendon.” A full recovery without surgery occurs in approximately 70 percent of cases, and Cashman said Teixeira would miss the season if he had surgery.
“This is one of those things I can’t come back too early,” Teixeira said. “We saw when I tried to play too early last year what happened. This is unfortunately, if I try to play too early, we could miss the whole season and we don’t want that. I don’t know if it’s going to be middle of May, end of May, beginning of June. I don’t know when it is, but I know that there’s a whole bunch of season left and the time that really matters is the playoffs.”
Early June could be the Yanks’ best-case scenario as tendon sheath injuries are very difficult to treat without surgery and the subsequent recovery time. When the slugger first announced his injury, Ken Rosenthal profiled tendon sheath injuries. Mark DeRosa tried to come back too soon from such an injury and required two surgeries that have sapped him off his power. Jose Bautista tried to avoid surgery as well but had to succumb to the knife last September.
On the other hand, David Ortiz suffered a similar injury in 2008 and missed 50 games. He slugged .529 after he returned from the injury, but that’s a rare case. The same year, Nick Johnson missed most of the season with a tendon sheath injury. If Tex ultimately needs surgery to retain his power as Bautista did, the Yanks will have to find a way to fill for one of their power bats at a time when first basemen are not readily available on the market.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.