Joe Girardi said after last night’s game the MRI done on Kevin Youkilis‘ back was clean, but it looks like he’s going on the DL anyway, according to Chad Jennings of the Journal News. Infielder Corban Joseph will take his place on the roster.
Youkilis has missed seven of the last eight games with a back injury that also bothered him last season. He got an epidural this morning will rest for at least the next two weeks. Youk tried to play through the back injury on Saturday only to have a setback.
Brian Cashman said it was a mistake to play him by everyone involved (which I assume means Youkilis, Girardi, and the trainers). Girardi said he has no regrets trying to play him because Youkilis told him he wanted to give it a shot.
Joseph, a 24-year-old 4th rounder from the 2008 draft, has never played in the majors. He has hit .273/.347/.477 in 22 games at Triple-A so far this season. He hit .276/.375/.455 in 107 games in Double-A and Triple-A last year. Joseph is primarily a second baseman. He does have some experience at third, but not much and he’s generally been bad at it.
Joseph does have some pretty extreme splits. In his minor league career he has hit .297/.387/.496 against righties and just .219/.292/.293 against lefties. So expect him to platoon with Jayson Nix at third (although considering his experience at third it probably won’t be much playing time).
Personally, I was a little surprised they didn’t call up David Adams instead as he has more experience at third lately. Then I found out that because the Yankees released and re-signed Adams during Spring Training he’s not eligible to be put on the 40-man roster until May 15. So Ben Francisco, who in my mind was the most likely to get DFA’d to make space for Adams, lives to fight another day.
Some notes:
• Shelley Duncan was DFA’d by the Rays. He’s a right handed bat that has hit .233/.315/.407 against lefties in his career. That’s not good and he’s not as good defensively as Francisco so I doubt the Yankees will make a move for him.
• Remember Brian Cashman broke his foot while skydiving? He got the cast taken off.
• Mariano Rivera is going to write an autobiography. That’ll be cool. Hopefully there will be some good stuff on how he grew up, his time in the minors, and his time behind the scenes working with other pitchers.
