UPDATE: According to Joel Sherman, who spoke to GM Brian Cashman, has said Sabathia will be out six weeks, pushing his return date back to July. And dispelling previous rumors, Cashman was asked about a possible trade and said “nothing has materialized yet”. It will probably be awhile before any trades could come up.
CC Sabathia was back in the clubhouse today after returning from his visit with famed surgeon Dr. James Andrews. He had his right knee drained and received a cortisone and stem-cell injection. Sabathia will continue to be on crutches through the end of the week, he’s been using them as a precautionary method since the initial diagnosis. But manager Joe Girardi has said they just don’t know how long its going to be. He was asked about Sabathia’s status after today’s doubleheader and said there is no exact time table at this point. “It’s going to be more than that (15-day), I can tell you that. When we’ll get him back, I don’t think any of us really know, because this is not something that’s done very often. You look at Michael Pineda’s injury, there’s a lot of data behind that one to give you an idea it’s going to be about six weeks. CC’s, there’s not.” As of right now CC will almost certainly not be ready to pitch when he is eligible to come off the disabled list on May 26.
So what’s exactly going on with Sabathia’s knee? Basically he has a bad case of arthritis, which is the degenerative knee issue we keep hearing about. He had the shot, now he will wait and see how he responds to it. He will be reevaluated tomorrow by Yankees team physician Dr. Chris Ahmad and from there some kind of rehab plan will be finally be formed. Although the team really doesn’t know what the long term prognosis is, Girardi was asked about surgery and said, “I have not been told that, but I think you have to wait and see how all this works.” The way it sounds, certainly surgery could be an option if it doesn’t get better or something new is found in future tests. Hopefully a few weeks of rest and the treatment will be enough, but for now the Yankees aren’t expecting him back just yet.
Even with his 3-4 record and 5.28 ERA, Sabathia will need to be healthy if the Yankees except to be contenders. It is still way too early for any kind of blockbuster trade Yankee fans might be hoping for, so it will have to be a collective effort from the entire team while they work through all these injuries. On a side note Chase Whitley has earned another start in Sabathia’s place, not sure if it will be a long term thing, but as long as he get’s the job done there is no reason to think otherwise.
