Yankees Get Concerning Update on Injured Starting Pitcher

The New York Yankees are dealing with a bit of an early injury crisis in their starting rotation.

Gerrit Cole is out for the year with injury and Luis Gil likely won't be back until summer. Of the remaining starters, only early AL Cy Young favorite Max Fried has been able to give the team consistent production.

The Yankees were hoping to get a much-needed reinforcement in the next couple of weeks by way of Marcus Stroman, but a lingering knee issue is pushing back his expected return date yet again.

Per Mark Sanchez of the New York Post, Stroman threw a live bullpen session this past Friday but was still experiencing discomfort in the injured left knee.

Manager Aaron Boone touched on the status of his injured starter before his team's game on Sunday, and said that Stroman is still working on getting past a final hump in his treatment.

“He’s got a lot of treatments on it and stuff, and he just can’t kind of get over that final hump to really allow him to get to that next level on the mound,” Boone said. “We’ll try and continue to get our arms around it and try and make sure we get that out of there.”

Stroman, who last pitched a game on April 11, had gotten off to a very rocky start to the new season before being placed on the injured list.

In his three starts, he pitched to a 11.57 ERA and was unable to make it past the third inning in any outing.

It was apparent that something was wrong with the two-time All-Star, and his subsequent left knee inflammation diagnosis appeared to be the culprit.

Boone mentioned that could tell the knee was bothering Stroman in his last start, an appearance where he was unable to make it out of the first inning and gave up five runs to the San Francisco Giants.

"Certainly his last start, I think he just couldn’t really step on that front side like you need to,” Boone said. “I talk about these guys that are like race cars — a little thing off, it can affect just that last level of command or that last level of extra stuff that you need."

Now, with a potential return being pushed back indefinitely, the team will have to continue relying on their already thin options while Stroman works his way back.

Things are looking a bit more concerning than originally anticipated, so it will be interesting to see how they approach his recovery moving forward.

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