New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone revealed on Wednesday that starting pitcher Corey Kluber suffered a subscap strain and will not be able to throw for at least four weeks. The diagnosis on the subscap — which is the largest muscle of the rotator cuff — came down after the veteran right-hander underwent an MRI earlier on Wednesday.
The Yankees will pursue a second decision before deciding whether or not the veteran pitcher has to hit the injured list.
Kluber was lifted from Tuesday’s loss to the Blue Jays after just three innings because of that shoulder tightness. It was his first start at Yankee Stadium since throwing his no-hitter against the Texas Rangers last week.
His exit naturally sent up a multitude of red flags considering the 35-year-old had been ravaged by injuries in each of the previous two seasons. He threw a combined 36.2 innings from 2019-2020, including just a single inning with those very same Rangers last year because of a shoulder tear.
Kluber eased some of those initial nerves later on Tuesday night, though there would always be uncertainty until the results of the MRI on Wednesday came back.
“I wouldn’t say alarmed at this point,” Kluber said. “I wish we knew more at this point in time, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow, but it doesn’t feel at all like what we dealt with last year…Last year I think it was more, what I was feeling at that point in time was in one specific area, this just kind of feels in general to me. I can’t really pinpoint one area where anything was painful tonight. I just had trouble getting it going. More of a fatigued feeling.”
Losing Kluber would be a considerable blow to a Yankees rotation that had been hitting its stride as of late, including a 35-inning scoreless streak.
“Always concerned when a starting pitcher comes out like that,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said on Tuesday. “We’ll obviously get some answers tomorrow. The physical exam was pretty good tonight, so we’ll just, instead of speculating, hopefully, get some answers tomorrow and hopefully, it’s just some tightness he had to deal with tonight that he couldn’t work through.”
