Yankees announce Greg Bird will undergo surgery tomorrow to remove a small broken spur on the outside aspect of his right ankle. Expected out 6-8 weeks. Austin has been told he’s on the team
— Erik Boland (@eboland11) March 26, 2018
Man, this sucks. I feel terrible for Greg Bird. Last year he fouled a ball off his foot and missed almost the entire season because of it. He broke a bone only 5 percent of humans have and needed surgery to get it removed. Now he’s developed a bone spur in that same area and needs another surgery to have more bone removed from his heel. Brutal.
The Yankees have the timetable at 6-8 weeks right now. That would bring him back around the end of May. If it does work out like that then that isn’t terrible. Didi and Gary both missed a month last year and were still very big parts of the team. The question with Bird is if he will actually be back in that timetable.
Last year, they diagnosed him with a bone bruise and said he’d only be out a month. Then they eventually realized he had a broken bone, which pushed his return back even farther. The good news is that this time around it seems like they have the correct diagnosis right away. At least I fucking hope they do. A specific injury like a bone spur is much better than some random inflammation causing problems.
Where do the Yankees go from here?
This probably helps Tyler Wade get a lot more time at second base. As Neil Walker will now be platooning with Austin at first base.
Do the Yankees need to sign a long-term, professional first baseman and move on from Bird? I think it’s still too soon for that. Let Walker and Austin do their thing for a month or so and hope we don’t have Chris Carter 2.0. If Bird comes back and rakes for 4 months then we’re golden. If not and there are more complications and he struggled to get back on the field then… then I don’t even know. I don’t want to think about that.
I feel awful for Greg. Baseball moves on though and the season is a couple days away. Time to focus on the coming weeks and hope Tyler Austin can be everything Jake (my cohost) dreams he can be.