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Who’s on first? Mark Teixeira’s injury leaves the Yankees wondering
- Updated: June 4, 2016
1:07 AM ET
BALTIMORE — The manager who has all the answers was suddenly, genuinely stuck for one. Asked who would play first base for the New York Yankees if Mark Teixeira is out for any significant length of time — or for Saturday, even — Joe Girardi could offer only this: “I have no idea. I’ve got to talk to my general manager.”
Teixeira left Friday night’s game against the Baltimore Orioles — a game in which the Yankees blew a 5-2 lead to lose 6-5 — in the bottom of the third inning after telling Girardi his right knee had locked up on him. Teixeira was sent to the Orioles’ doctor for a look-see and then to a hospital for an MRI. The results were not available after the game, but with the Yankees this season and Teixiera the past three or four, it is always prudent to assume the worst.
As a result, one-third of the way into a season in which they have proven to be one-third of a bad team, the Yankees have no idea who will be playing first base on Saturday — or Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, for that matter.
“Ref did fine,” Girardi said of rookie Rob Refsnyder, who was rushed into emergency duty when Teixeira came out of the game. “He made two plays, and he looked OK.”
When asked if he was comfortable with Refsnyder, a live bat without a position, playing first base on a regular basis, Girardi hedged his bets.
“Yeah, I mean, he did the job today,” he said. “But he hasn’t played it a lot. But it’s something, like I said, we’ll talk about.”
The obvious second-guess, of course, is that a backup first baseman is probably something the Yankees should have talked about months ago — as far back as Feb. 2, to be precise, the day Greg Bird, the heir apparent to Teixeira in the Yankees’ farm system, underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum that will sideline him for this year and probably part of 2017.
Blowing a three-run lead wasn’t the biggest concern for manager Joe Girardi, who might have to find a long-term replacement at first base after Mark Teixeira left Friday’s game with a knee injury. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
The Yankees thought they …
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