After making his third rehab start on Tuesday night, it sounds like Ryan Yarbrough will rejoin the Yankees soon.
Aaron Boone said Wednesday that the lefty’s most recent minor league outing was “probably” his last, though that had not been set in stone as of Wednesday morning.
“I haven’t seen him yet today, but good reports,” the manager said. “I watched his first several hitters. He looked sharp.”
Yarbrough, on the injured list with an oblique injury since June 22, totaled 4.2 innings, three hits, two runs, one walk, six strikeouts and 63 pitches for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday. The 33-year-old has allowed five earned runs, walked one and struck out 12 over 11 innings on his rehab assignment.
With the Yankees’ rotation depth limited, Yarbrough has been building up as a starter. However, it’s possible the career swingman ends up in the team’s bullpen.
The Yankees don’t have a second left-handed reliever to pair with Tim Hill at the moment, as Brent Headrick is also on the IL, and Yarbrough would give the club a better long-man than their incumbent option, Paul Blackburn.
The bullpen is where Yarbrough began the season after signing with the Yankees at the end of spring training, but injuries forced him into the rotation back in May.
A junk-baller with a funky arm slot, Yarbrough thrived in the role, recording a 3.83 ERA over eight starts and 40 innings. One outing, an eight-run clunker against the Red Sox, inflated his ERA, but he didn’t allow more than two earned runs in any of his other starts.
Yarbrough has a .390 ERA over 55.1 total innings this season.
