The New York Yankees, winners of 12 of their last 16 games coming into Sunday’s matchup against the Rockies in Colorado, are starting to pull away from the rest of the American League East. Approximately one-third of the way through the 2025 season, the defending AL pennant-holders had opened up a 5 1/2 game lead over the second-place Boston Red Sox following Saturday’s slate.
While the Yankees are benefiting somewhat by the overall weakness of their division â no other team is even over .500 â they have established themselves as firm favorites despite a lengthy series of injuries headlined by the loss of 2023 Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole to Tommy John surgery.
On the offensive side of the ball, no injury has hit the Yankees harder than the bizarre elbow ailment that has sidelined 35-year-old Giancarlo Stanton for the entire season so far, including Spring Training.
Yankees Offense Rolls Even Minus Stanton
Even without Stanton, the Yankees have still posted the highest team OPS in MLB at .823, and are tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers for second-most runs scored, at 293. The Chicago Cubs lead the Majors with 317 runs.
Stanton, in the 11th season of his 13-year, $325 million contract, leads all active players in career home runs with 429. Another 18 postseason homers, including seven in last year’s Yankees run to the World Series, only highlight how valuable Stanton would be to the Bronx Bombers’ attack â if he could play.
But a persistent case of tendinitis in not just one but both of his elbows has kept Stanton out of action â and kept their fans guessing on when the five-time All-Star could be back to add even more punch to the Yankees’ already-potent offense â or if the Yankees will simply trade him away and let another organization deal with the problem.
On Sunday morning, however, the Stanton situation became much more clear, in a way that should make the team, and its fan base, happier.
Longtime general manager Brian Cashman finally gave some specifics on when Stanton could be ready to resume his spot as the New York designated hitter, with the Yankees making their push to seal a playoff spot and get ready for another attempt to win the 28th World Series in franchise history.
Cashman: Stanton ‘Really Close’ to Rehab Assignment
“Stanton, you know, has been doing everything. He’s kind of completed his baserunning now. He’s been hitting for a long time, with that tremendous BP machine we have, which is Trajekt. So he is been getting live ABs. He is scheduled for live (batting practice) for the next two weeks,” Cashman said, in an interview on SiriusXM Radio’s MLB Network channel.
The Trajekt Arc machine is a sophisticated, internet-connected pitching machine that “has the ability to move up and down and side to side based on a pitcherâs release slot. Pitcher video (from the hitterâs perspective) is then projected onto the machineâs screen and pitches are fired to hitters via a web app,” according to an MLB.com report.
As to when Stanton might return, Cashman did not give an exact date, but for the first time revealed that Stanton is now “really close” commencing a rehab assignment.
Assuming that Cashman meant that Stanton will start rehab soon after his live batting practice in about two weeks, and with hitters’ rehab stints limited to 20 days, the Yankees GM appeared to be saying that Stanton would be ready to return in five or six weeks.
That sets the date for Stanton’s comeback sometime between June 29 and July 6. Whether the home run king will be able to make that schedule with no further health setbacks, however, remains impossible to predict.
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