Yankees dodge a bullet, now have to make a call on Luis Severino

12:00 AM ET

NEW YORK — The New York Yankees got good news late Friday night on their 22-year-old right-hander Luis Severino, who left the game against the Chicago White Sox earlier in the night complaining of pain in the back of his right elbow.

The results of an MRI revealed nothing more serious that a strained triceps, which means no damage to the ulnar collateral ligament, and no need for the dreaded Tommy John surgery.

What it also means is that there’s no medical explanation for what has ailed Severino in the first seven starts of his sophomore season, of which he has now lost six, with nothing even close to a victory.

At least if the MRI had turned up some structural damage, the Yankees could apply some logic to the illogical situation of a pitcher who was lights-out last year struggling to get anyone out this year.

Last Sunday, after Severino allowed three home runs to the Boston Red Sox in a 5-1 Yankees loss, I asked Joe Girardi if his team, at the time scuffling along at seven games under .500 and in last place in the AL East, could afford to continue running Severino out there to work out his problems on a major league mound.

After another rough outing Friday, Luis Severino is 0-6 with a 7.46 ERA. Noah K. Murray/USA TODAY Sports

“I actually think the kid is really close,” Girardi said. “If he’s throwing the ball like he did tonight, I think he’s going to win games if we score runs.”

But after Friday night’s performance — Severino allowed seven runs and seven hits in 2 2/3 innings of a 7-1 loss — Giradi can no longer maintain the fiction that Severino is just a minor adjustment or two away from the kind of dominance he showed last season. And with the notion of serious injury no longer in play, there is really no other move for the Yankees to make.

They have to bite the bullet on Severino, the most highly prized pitcher in their farm system since Manny Banuelos — who the Yankees eventually gave up on after his 2012 Tommy John surgery and shipped off to the Atlanta Braves, and who has not pitched in 2016 due to recurring elbow problems — and send him back to …

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