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A few days ago, a wave of COVID positives infected the Yankees, forcing them to place several players on the injured list and call up a whole bunch of RailRiders from Triple-A Scranton. Out went Aaron Judge, Gio Urshela, Kyle Higashioka, Nestor Cortes Jr., and Wandy Peralta. In came Trey Amburgey, Greg Allen, Hoy Park, and Rob Brantly. The roster shuffle didn’t stop there, as Luke Voit and Tim Locastro soon hit the IL with standard baseball injuries of their own, leading to the returns of Chris Gittens and Ryan LaMarre.
The B-squad Bombers beat the odds to take two out of three from the Red Sox over the weekend, but even Sunday’s surprising 9-1 blowout victory couldn’t register as a perfect night. In the fourth inning, Amburgey hurt himself while unsuccessfully trying to beat out a double play grounder.
Although the Yankees initially said that it was a hamstring cramp, the team changed course on Tuesday afternoon and announced that it was actually a strain. Amburgey will go to the 10-day injured list ahead of this upcoming two-game set with the Phillies. It took him six years to make the majors, but he’ll have to keep waiting on that first career hit.
To take Amburgey’s spot, the Yankees will turn to 23-year-old outfield prospect Estevan Florial, who has had a couple cups of coffee with the team over the past two seasons. Although he homered twice on Friday, Florial has only hit .213/.318/.408 with 8 long balls and a 93 wRC+ in 42 games at Triple-A in 2021, but there weren’t many other options unless the Yankees wanted to roll the dice on more non-roster players in Socrates Brito or Thomas Milone. The pickings are slim.
At this point with Amburgey not even a possibility anymore, there’s little harm in having Florial around while the rest of their outfielders are on the mend. Keep in mind that he might not immediately jump into the lineup, but it’s certainly possible when the only other center field options aside from Florial are Allen and a very-old-looking Brett Gardner.