NEW YORK (AP) — Yankees slugger Juan Soto has elbow inflammation and not a serious injury such as a torn ligament, a relief to the team and its fans.
Soto didn’t play for the first time this season when New York opened a high-profile series against the Los Angeles Dodgers with a 2-1, 11-inning loss on Friday night.
“A relief,” Soto said after getting results of a scan. “Now I feel good.”
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said the three-time All-Star outfielder was day to day and will not go on the injured list.
“Grand scheme of things, we got some good news. Just some inflammation,” Boone said. “There might have been some anxious moments in there.”
Soto was removed from Thursday night’s 8-5 win over Minnesota after five innings because of left forearm discomfort. Soto said after the game the forearm of his throwing arm had been bothering him for about 1 1/2 or two weeks.
Soto isn’t sure when he will play next.
“We will see for the next couple of days how I’m going to feel,” he said. “We’re going to go day by day.”
Soto said he pushed to play Friday. He put on batting gloves and was on the top step of the dugout during the late innings as if preparing to pinch hit, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was convinced it was a facade.
“I had no expectation that he was going to take an at-bat tonight,” Roberts said.
Boone admitted as much, when asked whether he considered using Soto: “Yeah, not tonight. … He was just I think feeling the moment a little bit.”
Soto felt sore during a 56-minute rain delay against the Twins and was examined by head team physician Dr. Christopher Ahmad. About 20 minutes before the restart, the Yankees decided to send him for tests.
“Once he gets hot and gets it going, they work on him, the hitting and throwing in the game’s been fine. It’s getting to that point, then waking up the next morning kind of sore. Different movements, just kind of stiff,” Boone said. “The rain delay happens and it’s like kind of, ‘I got to go through that process again.’ Dr. Ahmad was here, so I was like, ‘Hey, why don’t we get this imaging on this?’ And I think a little bit of peace of mind there for him, like why is this still lingering?”
Soto had started the opening 64 games in his first season with New York after being acquired from San Diego in December.
“Kind of just been grinding through it,” he said Thursday night. “It’s kind of funny. It doesn’t hurt when I throw, or hitting. It’s more like soreness that I feel any kind of move that I make with my arm. But it definitely doesn’t stop me from anything baseball-wise.”
Soto is batting .318 with 17 home runs and 53 RBIs, helping the Yankees to a major league-leading 45-19 record.
“We all decided to not start getting work again after an hour, sitting down here, start getting hot again, warming it up,” Soto said. “We didn’t want to risk anything like that, so we just decided to stop.”
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