ST. LOUIS — The Yankees employ two high-profile, high-salary switch-hitters, and Carlos Beltran and Mark Teixeira crossed paths yesterday — metaphorically speaking — on the road connecting “Encouraging” and “Discouraging.”
While Beltran took a baby step toward avoiding immediate surgery, Teixeira’s resurgence hit a speed bump, as his surgically repaired right wrist acted up and caused Joe Girardi to scratch his regular first baseman from Monday’s lineup. Late Monday, following the Yankees’ 11-inning, 6-4 victory over the Cardinals at Busch Stadium, Teixeira sounded pessimistic about returning to action Tuesday night.
“It’s pretty sore right now,” said Teixeira, who missed most of the 2013 season due to his injured right wrist. No tests are scheduled at this time, Teixeira said.
Beltran, who has been on the 15-day disabled list going back to May 13, took 15 swings with a fungo bat from each side Monday at Yankee Stadium, under the supervision of Yankees assistant athletic trainer Mark Littlefield, and reported no discomfort in his ailing right elbow. On Tuesday, he’ll use a real bat, Girardi said, and if that goes well, he’ll graduate to “tee and toss” on Thursday.
The 37-year-old outfielder has a bone spur in his right elbow that eventually will require an operation in which the spur will be shaved. It’s just a matter of whether Beltran can tolerate the pain enough to hold off the procedure until the offseason. If he can’t and undergoes surgery, he likely would miss another eight-to-12 weeks.
“[Monday] was a step in the right direction,” Girardi said. However, the Yankees’ manager cautioned that it was way too early to draw any broad conclusions about Beltran, who has an underwhelming .234/.286/.430 slash line in 33 games with the Yankees this season.
Teixeira undoubtedly took a step in the wrong direction, and he expressed remorse about starting in 30-of-31 games since he returned from the disabled list (for a right hamstring injury) on April 20. The wrist flared up during the Yankees’ series against the Cubs last week, he said.
“It’s not completely unexpected,” he said. “I went pretty much every day for five weeks. It’s probably time to take a day or two off to let it calm down. It’s definitely barking at me.”
Reminded that there had been talk earlier about resting him more often, Teixeira said: “That’s probably the smart thing to do, but we never do that. So we play until it hurts. That’s kind of the way I’ve played since I was a rookie. Kind of the way it is.”
The pain reminded Teixeira of days during spring training, he said, when he hurt bad enough that he didn’t even pick up a bat. He underwent the surgery last July 1, and he said his doctors told him to anticipate the pain flaring up intermittently for as long as a year after the procedure.
Teixeira leads the Yankees with nine home runs and sports an impressive .248/.365/.488 slash line, which has covered up for the offensive blemishes of some teammates. It proved fitting in Teixeira’s absence that the Yankees scored six runs Monday without the benefit of an extra-base hit.
The Yankees certainly don’t want to put Teixeira on the disabled list, yet the 34-year-old sounded receptive to a reporter’s idea of sitting out the next two games against the Cardinals and then using Thursday’s off day to further rest the wrist.
“We’ll take it day-by-day,” Teixeira said. “It’s nice to know we have a day off Thursday. We’ll see how it feels [Tuesday].”
Girardi also said that injured starting pitcher Michael Pineda (right shoulder blade) will throw two innings in an extended spring-training game Tuesday in Tampa, while reliever Shawn Kelley, on the disabled list with a back injury, played catch from 75 feet on Monday.