Jeter the jerk
Betances joins list of Yankees studs out for Opening Day
His wars with Yanks’ Cashman
Inside the Stanton deal
A right shoulder impingement will put reliever Dellin Betances on the injured list when the season begins next week. He will join Luis Severino, Aaron Hicks and potentially CC Sabathia.
TAMPA — The Carl Pavano MRI tube is doubling as an instrument to take the Yankees’ spring training team photo.
Concerned about running out of time before the real games start and with Dellin Betances’ 89-91 mph fastballs sounding as if they were being thrown into a couch instead of cracking the catcher’s leather, the Yankees stuffed the colossal right-handed reliever into the machine on Tuesday.
When the MRI was read, it was determined baseball’s premier setup man has an impingement in his right shoulder that will force him to start his walk year on the injured list.
Betances joins staff ace Luis Severino and Aaron Hicks, the center f ielder and leadoff hitter on the shelf for the start of the season March 28 against the downtrodden Orioles at Yankee Stadium. And CC Sabathia will either serve a five-game suspension at the beginning of the season or open on the IL as he comes back from right knee surgery and having a stent inserted into a blocked heart artery during the offseason.
That’s a lot of talent on the IL, but it didn’t force Brian Cashman to run for cover.
“Taking hits, but they are things you also expect, too,’’ the GM said of key players not being ready at the start of the season. “It is not the way you draw it up, but at the same time it is part of the playing season. When you’re dealing with them there are a degree of hits. These have expiration timing tags to them. For that you are thankful and you would rather not be going through any of them, but when you’re going through them it could be worse. Although they’re down now, they will be coming back.’’
It’s unknown when Betances will return to what has been labeled the best bullpen in baseball. He was told to refrain from throwing for three days and was prescribed anti-inflammatory medication.
Betances admitted being late for camp due to the birth of his first child and having an altered offseason throwing program put him behind other pitchers. He also thought rushing just for the sake of being available on Opening Day wasn’t a good plan.
“It’s better to take my time a little bit. With a week left [in spring training] it wouldn’t be fair to my teammates to go out there and not having them feel I was capable of throwing,’’ said Betances, who told the Yankees he wasn’t getting the extension needed to add velocity to a subpar fastball.
With Ar old is Chapman, Zack Britton, Chad Green, Adam Ot ta vi no, Jonathan Holder, Stephen Tarpley and an improved Tommy Kahnle, the Yankees have enough in the pen to survive a short IL stint for Betances.
However, remember Severino’s inflamed right rotator cuff wasn’t originally supposed to keep him out until May and it will. Hicks was expected to return in two days and he hasn’t played since leaving a game March 1.
“We will miss [Betances] and I also feel it is something we can correct. It buys him a little time and hopefully not something that will be long term,’’ Aaron Boone said. “We feel we are built to withstand that.’’
There had been earlier red flags that this was more than Betances lagging behind, and the last one was the brightest.
Sunday against the Phillies a fastball that usually lives in the high 90s and occasionally reaches triple digits was clocked between 87-91 mph and averaged a pedestrian 89.
When Betances’ name landed on a minor league pitching schedule for Monday and he didn’t throw, alarms went off. However his name was supposed to be removed from t hat schedule three days before and wasn’t.
More than one talent evaluator thinks the heavy workload from 2014 through last season might have exacted a toll.
In the past five seasons, Betances has appeared in 349 games and hurled 373 ¹/₃ innings. He has whiffed 607 and walked 162 and never been on the IL during that stretch.
That ended Tuesday.