ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It turns out that Giancarlo Stanton’s setback last month was more complicated than just a reinjury of his right calf strain.
GM Brian Cashman revealed on Thursday that Stanton “had a whole new injury … not a setback from the prior injury,” after the Yankees veteran DH had been on the verge of returning from the initial injury he sustained in late April.
The new injury, suffered while running the bases in mid-June, is still a right calf strain, but in a slightly different area, Cashman said, which is why his progress has been slow.
“It kind of resets the whole thing,” Cashman said at Tropicana Field. “So he’s finally been cleared to start some running. He’s gotten PRP injections along the way, but ultimately, it was an unfortunate circumstance. Certainly we’d love to have him in that lineup and being the weapon that he is. But we have to let it heal. We have to give it the time it takes, and unfortunately it takes time.”
How long that will take remains to be seen, though at this point it seems unlikely that Stanton will be available to the Yankees before August.
The 36-year-old’s extended absence has especially hurt since Aaron Judge went down at the end of May with a right rib stress fracture, which he will finally have reimaged during the All-Star break next week.
The offense is in the midst of a brutal stretch without the two sluggers, and it is still going to be weeks before either has a chance of returning.
