SEATTLE — It’s always something with the Yankees. Somebody’s always getting hurt or having something wrong with them. It’s been that way for three years.
Wednesday’s head-shaking news developed into the morning when Domingo German rushed to a local dentist to deal with an emergency root canal.
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And, of course, this German tooth issue occurred on a day that he was scheduled to start.
Instead, the Yankees had to improvise again and opted to give recently-recalled righty Nick Nelson a start for the middle game of a three-game set with the Mariners.
German’s tooth flareup came a day after shortstop Gleyber Torres was scratched from the lineup due to left hamstring cramping that began in Game 2 of last Sunday’s Subway Series doubleheader while he was preparing for a possible in-game insertion. Also Tuesday, reliever Darren O’Day suffered a left hamstring strain during pre-game that the Yanks believe is “significant.”
As for German, the slumping righty was feeling better by Wednesday afternoon and possibly would be available for relief duties in a pinch.
“He’ll probably be available in some way, shape or form if needed (Wednesday night), but certainly moving forward in the weekend,” manager Aaron Boone said. “It may be a number of different roles.”
Interestingly, it appears that the Yankees are leaning with starting lefty Nestor Cortes for Friday night’s opener in Houston instead of German, who probably will pitch in relief in that game if he’s not deployed in the Seattle series.
Cortes pitched well in his first start of the season in Game 2 of Sunday’s doubleheader, allowing one run over 3 2/3 innings, while German is 0-3 with a 6.54 ERA over his last seven starts and 4-5 with a 4.50 ERA for the season in 15 outings.
“It could be Nestor with German behind him (on Friday),” Boone said. “(Michael) King could factor into some things. But we’ll just kind of see how what our usage is (Wednesday and Thursday).”
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