Carlos Lagrange injury update could change everything for Yankees' bullpen

We've been waiting for this update for a while now, and if you're a true Yankee fan you know the feeling we're talking about, too — you love watching a reliever come out of the bullpen in the Bronx, throwing fuel, and slamming the door on an inning. We may be getting close to adding another option like that.

Carlos Lagrange has every ingredient to be exactly that guy, and the update Francys Romero dropped this week is the best news attached to his name in months.

Lagrange, one of the Yankees' top pitching prospects, went down with a right shoulder capsule strain back on July 2, right around the time the organization had already started transitioning him into the bullpen with real hope he could debut in September or serve as an extra October arm. The injury put all of that on ice, and Brian Cashman called an in-season return "highly doubtful" as recently as Aug. 3.

Now Lagrange is traveling to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to continue his rehab, with a live batting practice session expected before he's activated. That's real, tangible progress that could put him in play for the playoffs.

Why the bullpen math suddenly matters more for Yankees and Carlos Lagrange

Here's why this update lands differently than it would have a month ago. Fernando Cruz is done for the season with a partially torn UCL, and the arms holding this bullpen together — guys like David Bednar, Brent Headrick, and Tim Hill — have already logged a heavy workload this year. If Lagrange gets healthy and looks like himself in that live BP, it's worth exploring whether he factors into the mix rolling into October, even in a limited role.

Ideally, the timeline should unfold like this: a live at-bat session first, and probably two to three days of rest after that if it all goes well. I'd imagine the Yanks would get him in a week of games at Triple-A, depending on how much he's built up. If he throws his live this wekeend, that gets him in a game sometime next week, and depending on how well that goes, maybe another outing or two with the RailRiders before their season ends on the 20th.

Before the injury, his bullpen conversion had already produced real results: at one point through his first 13 1/3 innings out of the 'pen, he rocked a 1.98 ERA and a .188 average against opposing hitters, with strikeout stuff that's never been the concern. Command has been the one real question mark but it's also less concerning in shorter stints.

Yankees fans love nothing more than a homegrown arm showing up late in the year and turning into a real weapon in October. Between an aging Aaron Judge, a rotation full of veterans logging heavy innings, and the Cy Young case building for Cam Schlittler, this is exactly the kind of season where you want every possible weapon available once the games start to matter most.

This is all still dependent on the shoulder actually holding up during the live at-bats and the Yankees' long-term view of his health. But for the first time in weeks, there's a real, specific reason to believe Lagrange could be part of this bullpen picture before the year is out.

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