Yankees’ Harrison Bader Injury Update

The Yankees have had a number of injuries to deal with so far during spring training, and that has included Harrison Bader’s strained left oblique. But the outfielder has been making progress and he offered an update on his recovery on Thursday.

Bader told Gary Phillips of the New York Daily News that there had been”absolutely no setbacks, no pain” to his oblique. The Yankee outfielder also said that he had hoped to start swinging “really soon.”

However, Bader did not offer a timeline as to when that would occur.

Bader will miss Opening Day, which is set for next Thursday at Yankee Stadium against the San Francisco Giants, and it was expected it could take six weeks for him to return. The news that Bader could start swinging in the near future could mean a return sooner than that.

And manager Aaron Boone had given a positive update earlier in the week that Bader was “doing better than we anticipated.”

Bader’s injury threw a bit of a wrench into the Yankees’ outfield plans going into the new season and Aaron Judge is expected to take a bulk of the workload in center field while Bader is sidelined.

The Yankees acquired Bader from the St. Louis Cardinals at the MLB trade deadline last summer, but he missed a large chunk of games after the trade due to plantar fasciitis. Bader did have success for New York during their run to the American League Division Series, hitting .333 with a .429 OBP, five home runs and six RBIs in nine games.

For more on the Yankees, visit AMNY.com