HOUSTON — Giancarlo Stanton avoided an immediate placement on the injured list after leaving Friday’s game with a tight right calf.
That hardly means he is in the clear.
As of Saturday afternoon, the Yankees were trying to give Stanton more time to see if he could improve enough to steer clear of the 10-day IL, though landing on it still seemed like the most likely scenario just to make sure it did not turn into a longer-term injury.
“I feel better than [Friday],” Stanton said before Saturday’s game against the Astros. “I’m going to try to get to 24 hours or maybe [Sunday] to see where we’re at and then decide what to do.”
Stanton had not yet undergone any tests on his calf, though he could in the coming days. In the meantime, he was spending his day in the training room getting treatment.
“It’s not ideal,” Stanton said. “That doesn’t mean great or terrible.”
Manager Aaron Boone acknowledged that the Yankees could err on the side of caution and put Stanton on the 10-day IL to give him time to recover, even if the calf injury does not rise to the level of a strain.
“And G’s on board with that too, but we also don’t want to race to the IL 12 hours after when hopefully something isn’t too serious,” Boone said. “We’ll be smart about it, G knows that, that we don’t want this to turn into a long-term situation. So we’ll proceed accordingly.”
As of two hours before first pitch Saturday, the Yankees did not yet have a player on the way from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre just in case, though Jasson Domínguez would be the likely candidate to be called up if Stanton ends up on the IL. In that scenario, it may just be a temporary call-up until Anthony Volpe is ready to return from the IL, likely at some point next week.
The 36-year-old Stanton, who is all too familiar with lower-body, soft-tissue injuries, sustained the calf tightness on a trip around the bases in the sixth inning Friday. He said he felt it while jogging from first to second on a walk by Jazz Chisholm Jr.
“It felt weird,” Stanton said. “Then my secondary [leads] at second kept feeling weird.”
While at second base, Stanton motioned to the dugout in an attempt to get attention and exit the game, though it did not happen until he got to third base on J.C. Escarra’s single off the left field wall.
“If I felt weird, let’s [not] wait and sprint and make it feel worse,” Stanton said. “So I just wanted to get out [of] there before any more hard steps to set me back if it was something.”
Boone remained hopeful that Stanton caught it before it turned into something more severe.
“Whether that turns into a day-to-day situation or a short IL, we’ll see,” Boone said. “We’ll let the next several hours play out and see where we’re at.”
Stanton, meanwhile, quickly shut down any talk of him being frustrated about another injury despite doing everything in his power to try to avoid this.
The Yankees had been giving him regular days off in an attempt to keep him healthy – which worked last season after he missed the first two and a half months to deal with tennis elbow in both arms, which he is still managing on a daily basis.
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“None of that matters, really,” Stanton said. “It’s just, what’s the deal with me and then decide what’s best for the team.”
A potential IL trip would allow the Yankees to push back a decision on whom they would remove from the roster to make room for Volpe when he finishes his rehab assignment, which could come by the time they return home next Friday.
But the more pressing concern was Stanton’s health.
“I’m sure there’s a part of him that’s ticked off about it,” Boone said. “But there’s also, one of the great things about G is he’s very honest and deals with what’s in front of him. He’s very good at compartmentalizing everything. Regardless, hopefully this is something that’s a short-term thing.”
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