Yankees place Aaron Hicks on the IL with right flexor strain

After Aaron Hicks left Saturday night’s game with a right elbow pain he and the Yankees feared the worst before he underwent an MRI on Sunday. Fortunately, it was revealed that he didn’t suffer any ligament damage and won’t require the dreaded Tommy John surgery.

The Yankees dodged a bullet with Hicks, but he was still placed on the 10-day IL with a right flexor strain. He’ll be shut down from throwing for the next seven to ten days before being reevaluated. According to Aaron Boone, there’s no timetable for his return at the moment but the expectation is he’ll return at some point this season.

The injury to Hicks on Saturday came just hours after the Yankees lost DH Edwin Encarnacion to a fractured wrist during Game 1 of their doubleheader sweep over the Red Sox. He’ll reportedly be out for the next 3 to 5 weeks which is a huge blow because he’s been one of the Yanks hottest hitters since the All-Star break.

Hicks was slumping at the time of his injury but he’ll still be missed especially if it keeps him out into the month of September. That being said, the Yankee outfield is still in good shape moving forward with Brett Gardner, Cameron Maybin, Mike Tauchman and Aaron Judge all swinging the bat well of late.

Let’s not forget about Clint Frazier too who is still stuck at Triple-A despite hitting .284 with 11 and 34 RBI during his time with the big league club earlier this season. It seemed like Frazier would be an option to finally get called back up again after Hicks went down but the Yankees are comfortable carrying just four outfielders for now. They also prefer to carry 13 pitchers so unless another outfielder goes down with an injury it doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing Frazier back in the Bronx anytime soon.

Gleyber and Gio both banged up

Even though the Yankees finished off a four-game sweep over the Red Sox and pretty much buried them and their postseason chances the injuries continued Sunday night. Gleyber Torres and Gio Urshela both had to leave the series finale early with what are hopefully just minor injuries.

Urshela fouled a pitch off his right knee and his left shin during an at-bat in the sixth inning and had to leave the game before the Yankees closed things out in the top of the ninth. Gio was very sore after the game and is probably day-to-day but it looks like he’ll be able to avoid the IL.

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Torres left the game before the top of the eighth with a “core” injury that he looked like he suffered after his first at-bat of the night. He was sent to the hospital for tests but his father later tweeted out that Torres was fine and joined the Yankees on the team bus for their trip to Baltimore. Surprisingly, he’s in the starting lineup tonight.

With the Yankees now 14.5 ahead of Boston and 8 ahead of Tampa Bay in the AL East standings they can afford to give both guys some days off during this week’s seven-game road trip. They’ll face the Orioles and the Blue Jays, the bottom two teams in the division.

If they do sit out a couple of games the Yanks have proven they have plenty of depth to overcome any injury so expect to see more of 2B Breyvic Valera and 1B Mike Ford this week.