Yankees may have dodged a bullet with Gio Urshela injury

When the backups begin to go down with injuries, that’s when it’s genuinely time to worry. However, it appears the Yankees have escaped further concern over Gio Urshela after X-rays came back negative on his bruised left knee.

Come on already! Enough with the injuries and the threat of further Yankees being placed on the IL — it’s only May 9 for crying out loud!

Adding further fuel to the fire that was Wednesday night’s 10-1 drubbing courtesy of the Mariners, breakout third baseman Gio Urshela fouled a ball off his left knee in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Immediately crumpling to the ground, it was only natural for Yankee fans to consider the worst — that Urshela had broken his knee cap into a dozen pieces and would never play again. Dramatic, yes. Warranted? Also, yes.

However, initial reports out of New York in the wee hours of Thursday morning state that the 27-year-old former top Indians prospect merely sustained a knee contusion.

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After fouling the pitch off himself, Urshela managed to continue the at-bat, eventually flying out to left field, before being replaced by Thairo Estrada in the top of the eighth.

Prior to results of the X-rays being known, Yankees manager Aaron Boone told Greg Joyce of the New York Post he believed Urshela had managed to elude any serious damage.

"“I think [he’s] OK,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I haven’t seen him yet, but they took X-rays just to be safe. It seems like a bruise. We’ll just monitor that overnight.”"

Although Urshela went 0-for-3 on the night and committed his second error in two games when he dropped a foul pop-up in the fifth inning, it’s still too soon to consider his Cinderella story complete.

While bone bruises can linger, or in the Yankee training staff’s case, be misdiagnosed — and turn out to be broken bones (Derek Jeter in 2012 and Mark Teixeria in 2015), the Yankees won’t need to rush Urshela back now that Miguel Andujar has returned from the IL.

Unfortunately, Andujar has ridden the struggle bus in his recovery from a partially torn right labrum.

Since coming off the IL, Andujar is 2-for-19 with five strikeouts, while committing two errors in the only game of the eight in which he’s played third base.

However, Boone told Randy Miller of NJ.com that he feels Andujar is just rusty and will find his groove soon.

"“You’re going to go through this as a big leaguer even when you’re a really good player, so he’ll work his way through it and it’ll be fun when he does,” Boone said."

Let’s hope our manager is correct in his assessment, and the poor performances aren’t the effects of an injury that won’t fully heal without season-ending surgery.