With Spring Training games set to commence on Thursday, injury updates are floating in daily from all MLB clubs. The New York Yankees will have their Grapefruit League opener on Friday, but the team will keep their eyes on a certain bullpen session. Yankees starting pitcher Clarke Schmidt has been dealing with a “cranky” back this spring, according to manager Aaron Boone, via The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty. The right-handed Schmidt will have another bullpen session on Friday.
Boone said he still expects Schmidt to be ready for Opening Day, but he mentioned that the right-hander complained of back pain following his most recent bullpen session. The Yankees’ skipper went on to add that Schmidt “really is fine.”
“We kept him throwing,” Boone said, via Kuty, “but he was kind of ahead of the game anyway with the amount of (live batting practices) he had done, the amount of bullpens he had done. So we just slowed him down and didn’t have him stop throwing … I don’t think it’s much of anything.”
The 29-year-old Schmidt has been with the Yankees organization since the team drafted him in the first round of the 2017 MLB Draft; he made his big-league debut in 2020. He only appeared in five games across the 2020 and 2021 seasons before earning a bullpen job in 2022.
New York has used him as a starter over the last two seasons. The 2024 campaign was a short one for him. A right lat strain led Schmidt to the 60-day injured list. Across 16 games and starts last year, the Yankees hurler logged 85 1/3 innings and posted a 2.85 ERA with 93 strikeouts. His 1.18 WHIP was the best of his career thus far, and he cut his HR/9 rate almost in half — from 1.4 to 0.8.
The Yankees signed Max Fried this offseason to join their starting rotation, which—aside from Fried’s addition—looks pretty similar to the one they rolled out last year. Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon, and Luis Gil will complement Schmidt and Fried.
The post Yankees’ Clarke Schmidt dealt injury speed bump at start of Spring Training appeared first on ClutchPoints.
