Tex placed on DL, but vows to return this year
First baseman hopes crutches accelerate healing; reliever Rumbelow recalled
NEW YORK -- The Yankees placed first baseman Mark Teixeira on the 15-day disabled list on Friday with a right shin bone bruise, but the club leader in home runs says there is a "100 percent" certainty that he will return to the lineup this season.
"There's no permanent damage," Teixeira said. "It's just a really bad bone bruise, worse than we first expected. It's unfortunate, but hopefully we have two months of the season left, so there's plenty of time for me to get healthy and come back."
The move was not required because of roster expansion in September, but it allowed the Yankees to recall right-hander Nick Rumbelow, who otherwise would have had to wait 10 days since he was last sent down to Triple-A.
Teixeira's DL stint is retroactive to Aug. 27. In 111 games, Teixeira is hitting .255 with 31 homers and 79 RBIs, and he's currently using crutches in the hopes of speeding his healing.
"He's still sore," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "The fact that we decided to put him on the DL makes us think we're not going to have him in a week's time. I can't tell you when we're going to get him back. The hope is that [by] not doing anything, it just heals up and we can get him back sooner than later."
Teixeira said that he could begin walking this weekend, to be followed by jogging and then running.
"Playing on it didn't make it worse; it just didn't allow it to heal," Teixeira said. "That's kind of the thing that we always knew, that you're not going to make it worse by playing on it, but it just didn't have a chance to heal. That's why I'm back on the crutches, really letting the whole thing calm down and start from scratch."
With Teixeira out of the lineup, the Yankees have been giving regular first base reps to rookie Greg Bird. Girardi said he could also use Dustin Ackley or Brendan Ryan at the position, and he briefly toyed with returning Alex Rodriguez to the field before abandoning that plan.
The 23-year-old Rumbelow has appeared in 10 games (9 2/3 innings) for the Yankees this season, posting a 2.79 ERA.