Too close for comfort
Yankees dodge losing Torres, Urshela to injury
BALTIMORE — Considering tests done on injured body parts belonging to Yankees players have delivered brutal results, the club was encouraged Gleyber Torres and Gio Urshela didn’t have to join the plethora of other Yankees on the injured list Monday.
In fact, Torres was in the lineup as the designated hitter against the dreadful Orioles at Camden Yards and Urshela, who wasn’t, said he was ready to play. Torres went 0-for-5 in the Yankees’ 9-6 win.
DJ LeMahieu and Torres have been the Yankees’ MVPs throughout the first four months of the season and had Torres gone down for an extended stretch it would have been devastating.
So, when the results of an ultrasound test came back without bad news the Yankees’ spirits were lifted.
“[Sunday night] I felt something different in my body. In that moment I didn’t know what it was exactly,’’ said Torres, who exited that night’s 7-4 win over the free-falling Red Sox at the start of the visitors’ eighth. “I just tried to tell the trainer and I went to the hospital. I got a lot of tests [checking] if I had a hernia or something like that. I took a pill [Sunday night] and I feel so much better right now.’’ Urshela, who fouled pitches off his right knee and left shin in his final at-bat Sunday, left the game at the start of the ninth and had Xrays taken, reported progress.
“It’s better than [Sunday] night,’’ said Urshela, who had the knee wrapped, a bandage on the shin and explained he felt the knee more than the shin. “I never saw that [two foul balls off the legs in the same at-bat] before. It is the first time it happened to me.’’
For a team that hasn’t had former ace Luis Severino and stud reliever Dellin Betances all year, Giancarlo Stanton limited to nine games, Miguel Andujar to 12 and put Luke Voit, Aaron Hicks and Edwin Encarnacion on the IL inside of four days (July 31-Aug. 4), losing Torres might have been the injury that hurt the most.