One day after being taken off the T-Mobile Park field in an ambulance, Yankees utilityman Oswaldo Cabrera was placed on the 10-day injured list with a left ankle fracture on Tuesday. Infielder DJ LeMahieu returned from his rehab assignment and was reinstated from the 10-day injured list in a corresponding move.
Cabrera sustained the injury when he ran wide to avoid Cal Raleigh’s tag at the plate in the ninth inning of the Yankees' 11-5 win over the Mariners on Monday. Cabrera beat the throw and the tag, but overran the plate by multiple steps. As he tried to stop, his left ankle buckled under his momentum.
Cabrera was able to stumble back and tag home plate with his hand but stayed on the ground after the play and did not move as the training staff rushed out to check on him.
After a brief time, the center-field gate at T-Mobile Park opened to allow the cart to come out, but it made its way only to the right-field foul pole before turning back and exiting. A few minutes later, as players from both teams stood in silence on the field, an ambulance came out and made its way to home plate.
“It’s definitely one of those unfortunate things that pops up that lends perspective to what we’re doing,” manager Aaron Boone said Monday night. “We’re playing a game. You get so consumed with it all the time and the ups and downs of it, and something like that happens for someone you feel so good about. … It smacks you with that perspective that we try to talk about and have all the time. At the end of the day, it’s a game.”
Cabrera, in his fourth season in the Majors, has been getting the most consistent playing time of his career, starting 30 of the Yankees’ first 41 games at third base. In 34 games, he’s hitting .243 with a .630 OPS, four doubles, one home run and 11 RBIs. He went 1-for-4 on Monday with a walk.
LeMahieu's activation on Tuesday was expected, with Boone saying Monday that LeMahieu would be in uniform Tuesday and make his first start of the season in the day game to end the series Wednesday. That could be in line to change, along with where LeMahieu plays when he does debut. Boone said that the plan was to move the four-time Gold Glover back to second base -- where he’s only made 44 starts since the beginning of the 2022 season -- but with Cabrera out, there could be a bigger need for him at third.
When LeMahieu does take the field, it’ll be the end of a long road back, itself the latest chapter in his recent struggles with injuries.
The 36-year-old didn’t make his debut last season until May 28 after breaking his foot on a foul ball toward the end of Spring Training. He then had his year end a month early thanks to a right hip impingement. He took an extended break from hitting in the offseason in hopes of coming back stronger this year but suffered another injury in Spring Training. A tweak in his left calf on March 1 ended his spring after just one game.
LeMahieu began a rehab assignment on April 22, and has played nine games since between Double-A Somerset and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. In the middle of that run, he received a cortisone shot in his hip that Boone called “preemptive.”
The infielder had a slash line of .444/.500/.593 in his rehab assignment with one home run. In his three games with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, he went 5-for-11 with a walk.