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New York Yankees News: Might Mark Teixeira Be Done for the Season?

By Michael Cambria

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According to the New York Post, theres a chance that Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira might be done for the remainder of the 2015 season;

Early on Tuesday morning it was announced that Tex was sent back to New York to undergo a second round of tests on his injured right leg while the rest of his team remained up in Boston to finish out their series against the Red Sox.

"“His bone bruise hasn’t healed at all,’’ general manager Brian Cashman said of his original injury suffered on August 17th. “There is no stress fracture and that was our biggest worry, but the bone bruise hasn’t healed. He has some soft-tissue inflammation and inflammation around the nerve so he received some sort of an injection to calm that down. Obviously, the bone bruise is the big issue and there has been no healing. They put him back on crutches and we are looking at weeks.”"

When George King III of the post asked Cashman about the possibility of Teixeira being shut down for the remainder of the season, the Yankees GM had this to say;

"“September is a month, and weeks means two. If it goes into three, you only have a week to get ready,’’ Cashman said. “He is going to be down for an extended period of time. It hasn’t been healing in any way, shape or form. Any other complications and it’s a timing mechanism. It’s a lot longer than anyone would have expected. It’s nothing he can do about and nothing we can do about it.’’"

This news isn’t very encouraging, as the Yankees have just 32 games remaining and now have no indication or timetable on the return of their switch hitting cleanup batting first baseman.

The good news is that despite not healing as quickly as anticipated, the contusion remained a bad bone bruise, and a stress fracture has been ruled out of the equation.

Despite starting just one game on August 25th and pinch-hitting on August 26th after suffering his injury on August 17th, Mark Teixeria still leads the entire Yankees roster with 31 HR and is second in RBI to Brian McCann, who now has a total of 79. This just goes to show how important Teixeria’s bat is to the Yankees lineup.

For now, rookie-sensation Gregory Bird has been manning the three corner while Tex is nursing his injury, slashing .237/.313/.373 with a .686 OPS through his first 59 major league at-bats. In 17 games started, Bird has collected 14 hits, two of which were homers and two of which were doubles, along with 10 RBI and seven walks.

With Greg Bird’s production falling off a bit, the Yankees are looking at a number of different platoon options over at first base.

One idea that seems to have the Yankees front-office in limbo is putting Mr. Alex Rodriguez back at first-base, where he’s only played a grand total on one game back on April 11, 2015.

"“I think you have to really talk about it now,” Girardi mentioned to King on putting A-Rod back at first. “Because I think our hope was that, when we left on that road trip [last week], you would have Tex back by the time we got home [Friday], or even on the road trip. But now, I think you have to think about it because you’re going to see left-handers. There’s left-handers in our division. There’s a lot of division opponents in the last 32 games or whatever we have left. I think you have to start debating the idea.”"

Brian Cashman on the other hand wants no part of it.

“I don’t think he can play first base,” Cashman said plan and simple.

Fortunately the Yankees have other options. Two recent September call ups, Dustin Ackley and Austin Romine are both better suited to play first base over A-Rod. The only problem is both have struggled a bit offensively. Romine’s bat is the reason he started the season on waivers after losing the starting back-up job to John Ryan Murphy. Dustin Ackley on the other hand is obviously considered an offensive ‘bust’ by the Seattle Mariners, which is why they decided to trade him over to New York in the first place.

Another option might be Brendan Ryan, who is a defensive magician and can play any infield position. The only problem here is the Brendan Ryan is in the same boat as Romine and Ackley, as his bat is suspect at best. Through 75 at-bats this season, Ryan is hitting just .214 with seven RBI.

Perhaps moving Chase Headley across the diamond might be the best option, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

The point is, the Yankees are going to have to come up with some sort of strategy on how they’ll handle first base without Tex sooner rather than later.

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