Pregame notes: Sabathia on track to rejoin Yankees’ rotation Wednesday

With a bigger, sturdier brace protecting his right knee, CC Sabathia threw a four-inning simulated game this afternoon. Assuming no unexpected setbacks, the plan is to have him come off the disabled list to rejoin the rotation on Wednesday.

Less than two weeks ago, Joe Girardi was talking about the possibility of Sabathia’s season being over. Today he was talking about revisiting a six-man rotation down the stretch.

“We weren’t sure what we were going to get when we saw the MRI,” Girardi said. “And the good thing is the MRI came back basically the same as it’s been, which allowed us to proceed forward. And he felt better and felt comfortable wearing the brace, which allowed us to move a little bit faster. So I am surprised.”

The new brace is thick, the kind of thing you often see on players who have had elbow or knee surgery. It has a joint that bends with the knee but otherwise stays thoroughly secure. Previously this season, Sabathia was wearing a tight sleeve. It was restrictive, Sabathia said, which might have been the point, but it became a problem.

“That other brace, it was just a little too restricting,” Sabathia said. “This one gives me a little more range of motion and stops right before I can hyperextend, so I feel comfortable with it (pitching) and running around getting bunts and that kind of thing. … I think the brace kind of holds my knee in one spot, not letting me get that grinding feeling, twisting and turning. I tested it as much as I could, and I let a lot of them go, so I felt pretty good.”

Sabathia faced Dustin Ackley, Rico Noel, Austin Romine, Jose Pirela and Rob Refsnyder. That’s one left-handed hitter and four righties, which might have been the point. Sabathia said his biggest test was throwing fastballs inside to right-handers. Something about that was problematic with the old sleeve, but those pitches were comfortable this afternoon.

“I don’t feel (knee pain) at all on any pitch,” Sabathia said. “Before, I felt it on a couple of pitches here and there in the bullpen, here and there playing catch. Throughout this whole last 10 days of playing catch, I haven’t felt it one time with the brace on.”

With that, the Yankees are prepared to put Sabathia right back into their rotation. If he comes back on Wednesday, he will have missed just 16 days. He will also come back just in time to give the Yankees a sixth starter exactly when they will need one in order to give the entire rotation an extra day of rest.

“Physically, we’ve had concerns all year,” Girardi said. “And we’ve kind of done this (spot starter routine) all year. Sometimes we didn’t know who was going to make the start to break it up, but if everything is OK, we know. … The whole thing is to make the knee more stable and for him to feel like he can do what he needs to do. He can let it go without having fear that something might pop up. Hopefully it works.”

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• Mark Teixeira stood on his own as he spoke to reporters in the Yankees’ clubhouse this afternoon, but when he walked away, it was on crutches without weight on his bruised right leg. “There’s a progression now,” Teixeira said. “I basically went from crutches to trying to run last time. Now that we know it’s a lot worse than first expected, there’s going to be a build-up from jogging to walking to running and making sure I can do everything.”

• Confident you’ll play again this season? “One hundred percent,” Teixeira said. “There’s no permanent damage. It’s just a really bad bone bruise, worse than we first expected. It’s unfortunate, but hopefully we have two months of the season left so there’s plenty of time for me to get healthy and come back.”

• Putting Teixeira on the disabled list wipes out any chance of getting him back in the lineup before the weekend, but the Yankees knew that wasn’t going to happen anyway. By putting him on the DL, they could bring back Nick Rumbelow a little bit earlier without waiting a full 10 days since he was optioned.

• Was the original injury worse than expected, or did trying to play through it make the injury worse? “Playing on it didn’t make it worse,” Teixeira said. “It just didn’t allow it to heal. That’s kind of the thing that we always knew, that, hey, you’re not going to make it worse by playing on it, but it just didn’t have a chance to heal. That’s why I’m back on the crutches, really letting the whole thing calm down and start from scratch. … Sometimes it takes more than 24 hours to get the full picture. We kind of went with our best guess the first time. We underestimated it a little bit. That’s the way it happens sometimes.”

• Probably goes without saying, but the Yankees are not pulling anyone out of the rotation when Sabathia comes back. There’s only one more scheduled off day the rest of the season. “We’ll insert him in here to give everyone an extra day’s rest,” Girardi said.

• A lot of attention on Stephen Drew’s bat these days, but you know who else is really hot? His double play partner, Didi Gregorius. “I think that Didi has grown up a lot in these five months,” Girardi said. “Playing every day, playing against lefties, allowing his talent to come out, gaining confidence each month, refining his swing; all of that. It’s your hope when you have a young player that it’s a transition that continues to go up and that’s what we’ve seen.”

Associated Press photos

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