BOSTON — Brett Gardner is likely to miss the remainder of the regular season after being diagnosed with a Grade 1 strain of his left oblique following an MRI exam on Friday.
“Is it possible it could be the rest of the year? Yes,” manager Joe Girardi said of Gardner before the Yankees’ 8-4 loss to the Red Sox on Friday night at Fenway Park.
The manager was hopeful, however, Gardner could be available as a pinch-runner before the end of the season and possibly be able to rejoin the lineup if the Yankees make the playoffs.
The center fielder suffered the injury on a check swing in the first inning of Thursday’s 6-5 win over the Orioles in Baltimore. He left the game after the at-bat and went back to New York for the scan.
“It’s a big loss,” Girardi said. “We’ve had to overcome a lot over the course of this year and we’re going to have to continue to do that. He’s been really good for us. He’s been really good offensively and defensively, in getting us off to quick starts.”
Now, Gardner could join Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira on a list none of them would like to be on: Yankees who may not get on the field again in 2013.
Curtis Granderson, who replaced Gardner in center field on Thursday and hit a home run, was back there Friday — as well as in Gardner’s usual leadoff spot.
Granderson has dealt with plenty himself already this season, suffering a fractured right wrist during his first at-bat of spring training and then going down with a fractured left pinky after returning in May.
“Anything that you could think of happening has happened,” Granderson said of both himself and the team. “I’m sure there’s a lot more that will happen. This year has been totally unscripted.”
So far, the Yankees have survived the setbacks and Girardi said he was confident they would do so again.
“We announced Derek was out and we won [two] games in a row,” Girardi said. “It’s almost to the point where I don’t think anything surprises our guys anymore. I don’t want to diminish how important guys are to us, but we’ve kind of gotten used to it. We get a guy back and a guy goes down. That’s kind of how it’s been.”
They managed to get by without Gardner for most of 2012 when he was lost with a right elbow injury — but they also went out and got Ichiro Suzuki to help replace him.
This season, Gardner has been especially valuable.
“It always helps when you have players who can fill in, but he has an element that we don’t have,” Girardi said. “We talked about last year that we missed that element a lot.”
Girardi didn’t rule out the chance Gardner might be able to help out on the basepaths before he’s fully active.
“We’ll see if he can be a pinch-runner as time moves on, but not for a few days,” Girardi said. “We’re not going to see him in Toronto [in the series against the Blue Jays that begins Tuesday]. We’ll see how he feels every day.”
The Yankees will find out soon enough how they deal with this latest setback.
“I know at this point in the season, losses mean a lot more, but you can go out and overcome that,” Girardi said.