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Roster crunches are almost never as pressing as we make them out to be. A couple of days after the Yankees made a tough decision sending Nestor Cortes Jr. back to Triple-A Scranton, the left-hander is back with the big league club replacing Cameron Maybin on the 25-man roster.
Maybin was pulled from Friday’s game against the Astros when he heard a “pop” in his calf, an injury that was later found to be a strain. Aaron Boone said yesterday that Maybin’s strain is a Grade 2 and will require “a pretty fair amount of time” to recover completely.
Maybin had been in the middle of a career renaissance, with a 139 wRC+ and underlying metrics that suggested the improvement was at least at little bit legit and sustainable. There was a lot of consternation in Yankee discourse this week about what Maybin’s role would be with the return of Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge, but unfortunately for Cameron, that issue appears resolved for the time being.
Cortes Jr. will slot into the long relief role he’s been so proficient with in 2019, and looks to give Aaron Boone even more bullpen options that he will ignore in favor of Jonathan Holder.