Some of the injury news seems to be looking a bit brighter for the Yankees. Carlos Beltran has been responding okay to back-to-back days taking light batting practice with hitting instructor Kevin Long. Beltran has been progressing slowly but surely, spoke to the media for the first time in a few weeks prior to yesterday’s game seemed very optimistic. “I’m happy, honestly”…..“It’s been a long wait for me mentally, just trying to get back as soon as I can and working as hard as I can to avoid surgery.” said Beltran. Along with those positive comments, his rehab has been equally encouraging up to this point. At the start of the week it was light swings with the FUNGO bat, then dry swings with with a regular bat and finally soft toss on Thursday. But Friday he stepped onto field to face some harder pitching during the team’s batting practice. Joe Girardi wasn’t sure if he was going to continue that workload without getting a day off, but Beltran was out there again today during batting practice taking swings from both sides of the plate. Girardi said he is scheduled to take more batting practice tomorrow and then they will start to evaluate the next steps for his rehab. When he finally does return he will just be a DH for the most part, then worry about playing him in the field said Girardi. The Yankees have not said anything specifically about what they have in store for Beltran, if all goes well after the weekend they will probably have to send him out for some minor league games possibly sometime late in the coming week. We will have to wait to see after the weekend.
Shawn Kelley is finally getting back to full health. He threw a 25-pitch bullpen session yesterday and was able end the session with a few sliders. His back has been fine after throwing over the last week. He came in today and reported no issues. He is scheduled to throw another bullpen session tomorrow then he will probably head out on at least one rehab assignment next week before being activated.
