TAMPA — The Yankees are in such bad shape, even the injuries they know about are getting worse.
And the possibility of Mark Teixeira undergoing potential season-ending surgery on his injured right wrist is a real one.
Teixeira revealed yesterday the injury, which was originally thought to be a strained tendon, is instead a partially torn tendon sheath — which covers the tendon and keeps it in place.
General manager Brian Cashman said yesterday there was a 75 percent chance the first baseman wouldn’t go under the knife and surgery would be “the worst-case scenario.”
But with the way the Yankees’ luck has been lately, it’s hard to imagine anything else.
And while it is similar to what happened to Toronto’s Jose Bautista last year, Bautista also had an unstable tendon which resulted in surgery.
Cashman, who spoke with team doctor Chris Ahmad yesterday, said Teixeira’s tendon is stable, which means it is not dislocated.
That’s the good news, according to Dr. Michael Hausman, Orthopaedic surgeon and chief of the hand and elbow service at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
“There’s a chance he would need surgery, but more than likely it will go back on its own,” Dr. Hausman said. “It’s not career-ending, but if he waits the full 8-10 weeks and that doesn’t work, it puts him well into the fall.”
And with the Yankees already thin at the corner infield positions — actually, just about everywhere — Cashman will continue to look for upgrades.
“Wrists you’re always worried about,” manager Joe Girardi said. “We’re not going to rush it. We’re going to rehab and let’s hope it works.”
Teixeira refused to put a timetable on a potential return and is determined not to make the same mistake as last year, when he rushed back from a calf injury.
“This is one of those things you can’t come back too early [from],” Teixeira said at Steinbrenner Field with his wrist still in a splint. “I tried to play too early last year and we saw what happened. If I try to play too early I could miss the whole season. I don’t know if it will be the middle of May, the beginning of May or the beginning of June. I know there’s a whole bunch of season left and the time really matters is the playoffs.”
He was insistent the injury wasn’t caused by his participation in the World Baseball Classic, which is where it occurred and believed the same to be true of the Mets’ David Wright, who is out with a strained left intercostal muscle in his rib cage.
“It has nothing to do with the WBC,” Teixeira said of his wrist. “It was a freak injury. I’m sure David’s was swinging. I’m sure David’s been swinging since December. It happens anywhere.”
Teixeira said he will, however, look at some of his pregame routine and will consider cutting it back.
“One thing I’ve thought about the last two years, I’ve been in the best shape of my life [and] I’ve had two injuries, so I think maybe it was just overuse,” said Teixeira, who will start doing some one-handed baseball drills next week and stay with the team through the end of spring training. “Maybe I’m swinging too much. I swing twice as much as anybody. It’s something [hitting coach] Kevin Long and I will talk about. I have to make sure I do the right kind of workout and maybe take a step back a little bit.”