Yankees' Tommy Kahnle not sure he'll be ready for start of season

TAMPA, Fla. – Sunday Aaron Boone said he believed Tommy Kahnle, out with right biceps tendinitis, would be ready for the start of the regular season.

The reliever, though not believing the injury is severe, didn’t sound quite as sure.

“We’ll see,” Kahnle said before Monday night’s game against the Pirates. “We don’t have a time frame yet. We’ll see what happens. I’m going to take it slow, just so I’m healthy and ready to go.”

Kahnle, signed in the off-season to a two-year, $11.5 million deal, said he’s dealt with biceps tendinitis twice before in his career – in 2014 while with the Rockies and in 2018 during his first big-league stint with the Yankees. That year Kahnle tried to pitch through it, which turned into “a debacle,” he said, as the reliever eventually found himself demoted because of ineffectiveness.

“This time I caught it early and we’re just going to see how it goes,” said Kahnle, adding he missed a month of the 2014 season when it cropped up.

Monday was the fourth day of a recommended 10-day period of not throwing for Kahnle.    

Judge, ready to head left, goes deep

Aaron Judge, who hit an American League-record 62 homers en route to winning the 2022 AL MVP, hit his first homer of the spring Monday night, taking a 1-and-2 curveball from righty Colin Selby to right-center for a 6-0 lead. Judge, whom the Yankees are considering for some leftfield duty this season at Yankee Stadium as a way to play Giancarlo Stanton in the Stadium’s smaller rightfield in the same games, is slated to play back-to-back Grapefruit League games in left Wednesday and Thursday, Boone said Monday. Judge, while still getting his work in at center and in right, has steadily increased his workload in left in recent days.

Oops

Aaron Hicks, still the favorite to start the season in leftfield, misplayed a fly ball by Pirates leadoff man ONeil Cruz to start Monday night’s game for an error. Starter Domingo German quickly erased Cruz, getting Tucupita Marcano to hit into a 3-6 double play, with shortstop Anthony Volpe applying an impressive swipe tag on Cruz in the bang-bang play at second. Hicks singled in his first at-bat, roping a single to right to lead off the second.

Old friend

Boone, about to meet with the media before Monday night’s game, popped out of the dugout to say hello and give a hug to Miguel Andujar, a non-roster invitee in Pirates camp trying to win an outfield spot.

The 28-year-old Andujar, signed by the Yankees at the age of 16 out of the Dominican Republic, finished second to Shohei Ohtani in AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2018 before a fluke injury sent his Bronx career spiraling. He was DFA’d by the club last September and was claimed by Pittsburgh.

“Always good to see guys that you spent a lot of blood, sweat and tears with,” Boone said. “Wish nothing but the best for him over there.”