Yankees place Giancarlo Stanton back on the IL, call up Tauchman instead of Frazier

Just a week after making his return off the IL Giancarlo Stanton left Tuesday night’s game against the Blue Jays with a bruised right knee. After undergoing an MRI after the game the Yankees announced on Wednesday that Stanton suffered a sprained right PCL and he’ll be placed back on the 10-day IL.

The Yankees will head to London coming off of a dominant 9-1 homestand but unfortunately, they won’t be joined by Stanton. Instead OF Mike Tauchman will make the trip and take Stanton’s spot on the roster while he’ll be shut down for the next 10 days before being re-evaluated. That means the injury will surely keep him out for at least a couple weeks.

As we’ve seen throughout the season the Yankees certainly have the depth to make up for the absence of a player of Stanton’s caliber. However, that doesn’t make losing him to another injury hurt any less. After missing 67 games with bicep, shoulder and calf problems Stanton finally made his return just last Tuesday. Hopefully, he’ll be back shortly after the All-Star break to contribute down the home stretch but right now you can’t help but feel terrible for him.

In the bottom of the first inning Tuesday night Stanton injured his knee when he slid headfirst into third base where he was tagged out by Toronto starter Clayton Richard for an inning-ending double play. At first glance, it looked like he hurt himself when Richard stepped on his hand and cleated him but it turned out he left the game because he banged his knee hard into the ground on the slide.

https://twitter.com/BlueJays/status/1143664527864672264

Prior to leaving the game, Stanton was 4 for his last 10 with five RBI and on Tuesday night he launched his first home run of the season at a distance of 445 ft. After the long layoff, his timing was back and it looked like he was about to take off, but know he’ll go back to square one and start the rehab process all over again.

Why not Frazier?

This weekend in London against the Red Sox Mike Tauchman will be the Yankees fourth outfielder but it wouldn’t surprise me if Clint Frazier gets called back up once the team returns stateside. If Stanton is going to miss at least two weeks the Yanks would be crazy not to call up Frazier to provide a boost offensively.

Frazier has struggled since his recent demotion hitting .136 with one home run for Triple-A Scranton but prior to being sent down, he hit .283 and posted a .513 SLG % with 11 and 43 RBI in 53 games. He made a huge impact and was one of the Yankees most consistent and clutch hitters (.375 AVG w/ RISP) so it’s hard to explain why he wasn’t called up to make the trip to London.

This is just speculation but it could have something to do with him taking the maximum three days to report to the Railriders. Even though every player gets 72 hours to report after being sent down  Frazier clearly took his time so you can’t help but think that maybe the Yankees are sending the controversial outfielder some sort of message.

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Another reason could be that they’re close to trading him in a deal for a front-line starting pitcher. Andy Martino of SNY recently reported that the Yanks had no interest trading Frazier for a rental such as Madison Bumgarner but that doesn’t mean they won’t include him in a deal for a pitcher who’s under team control past this season.

Whatever the case may be I still hope he’s back in the Bronx in the coming days because as long as Stanton is on the IL he deserves a spot on the 25-man roster. Let’s not forget that Cameron Maybin is also now on the IL so for the time being Brett Gardner is going to be the everyday left fielder.

Gardner has swung the bat ok of late but we all know how quickly he can cool off so the Yanks should seriously consider calling up Frazier to give them another option.