General manager Brian Cashman said he doesn’t believe Andy Pettitte’s broken left leg will keep him out for the rest of the year and he has good reason to think the Yankees will get him back when he’s eligible to come off the 60-day disabled list.
“I think two months is a realistic time-frame,” Dr. James Gladstone, co-chief of Sports Medicine and an associate professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital said Thursday. “If you’re going to fracture your fibula, you’re better off doing it the way he did than the way most athletes do it.”
The lefty was drilled by a one-hopper from Cleveland’s Casey Kotchman on Wednesday and threw three warm-up pitches and one real pitch before being removed from the game.
“Most of the time, with an injury like this around the ankle, there’s twisting involved and that causes the tearing of soft tissues,” Dr. Gladstone said. “With a direct blow that cracks the bone on impact, there’s swelling of those tissues, but no tearing, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
And Pettitte’s recovery shouldn’t be hampered by his age.
“Whether he’s 25 or 40, it shouldn’t make a difference,” Gladstone said. “The bone should heal the same way now as it would have for him 10 years ago.”
Pettitte is joined on the DL by CC Sabathia, who was put on the 15-day DL yesterday with a strained groin. The Yankees called up right-handed pitchers Ryota Igarashi and Adam Warren from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to take their spots on the roster.