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Yankees' Greg Bird once again sidelined for surgery

New York Yankees first baseman Greg Bird will have surgery Tuesday to remove a broken bone spur on his right ankle, which is expected to sideline him for six to eight weeks.

After being scratched from Saturday’s game, Bird was given a magnetic resonance imaging exam and a CT scan, which revealed inflammation. The diagnosis of a broken bone spur Monday came from foot specialist Dr. Martin O’Malley, who had performed last year’s operation on Bird.

The surgery is unwelcome news for the Yankees, who open their season Thursday at Toronto.

The team was counting on Bird’s smooth left-handed swing to balance the middle of their order, which leans heavily right-handed with Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Gary Sanchez.

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Instead, the Yankees will begin the season with Neil Walker, recently signed to play second base, and Tyler Austin, who was scheduled to begin the season at Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, splitting the duties at first base.

“It’s upsetting. I know it’s upsetting to Greg, but at least we have some answers,” manager Aaron Boone told reporters in Atlanta on Monday night before the Yankees’ final exhibition game. “In the grand scheme of things, hopefully we do look back and it’s a short-term bump in the road and we can get him back for good.”

There are a number of outside options available — Adam Lind, who hit 14 homers and posted a .875 on-base-plus slugging percentage mostly against right-handers last year with Washington, was in camp earlier — but general manager Brian Cashman did not seem interested in pursuing them when he spoke Saturday.

“This time of year, this is what you do: You go with what you’ve got,” Cashman said before the extent of Bird’s injury was known. “So, obviously, Neil Walker’s import here recently becomes even more beneficial. Tyler Austin had a really good camp. So it’s important to have depth. You’d rather not rely on it, but we have some depth.”

The Yankees overcame the early injury absences of shortstop Didi Gregorius and catcher Gary Sanchez last year, with Ronald Torreyes and Austin Romine filling in capably.

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But first base was more of a problem. Chris Carter, Garrett Cooper and, to a lesser degree, Chase Headley were unable to provide the offense that Bird had shown flashes of producing. Yankees first basemen were minus-2.3 wins above replacement — third-worst in baseball last season.

Bird, 25, has shown great promise — hitting 11 homers and posting a .871 OPS when he played in 46 games at the end of 2015. But he missed the next season with shoulder surgery and nearly four months of last season with an ankle injury that was misdiagnosed after he fouled a ball off his leg at the end of last year’s spring training. He returned in late August and was one of their most vital bats in the playoffs. His solo home run off Cleveland left-hander Andrew Miller helped the Yankees stay alive in the division series with a 1-0 win in Game 3.

When Walker starts at first — most likely on Friday against Blue Jays right-hander Aaron Sanchez — he will be the 15th Yankee to start at first base since the start of the 2016 season.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

BILLY WITZ © 2018 The New York Times

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