Yankees Chad Green Will Avoid Tommy John Surgery

New York Yankees rookie pitcher Chad Green will reportedly not have to undergo Tommy John surgery on his elbow this winter and is expected to be ready this spring.

Many Yankees fans feared the worst watching starter Chad Green walk off the mound in the second inning of his September 2nd start against the Baltimore Orioles. Nothing had been working for the 25-year-old righty in the early going, but he had managed to gut his way through the first.

In the second inning, Green allowed a double to Orioles shortstop J.J. Hardy, an RBI single to Adam Jones, and then a two-run blast to Pedro Alvarez in quick succession. After walking Manny Machado on four pitches that were nowhere near the strike zone, he took himself out of the game with pain in his right elbow.

Yankees manager Joe Girardi didn’t mince words after the game. “It is worrisome,” he told reporters. The team had just gone through almost the exact same scenario with fellow starter Nathan Eovaldi, who ended up requiring Tommy John surgery and will miss the entire 2017 campaign.

The team received some much-needed good news Wednesday though. Chad Jennings of the Journal News reports that Yankees team doctor Christopher Ahmad is recommending that Green rehab his strained flexor tendon and did not find any damage to his ulnar collateral ligament, which is what would require Tommy John.

Green told Jennings that the injury likely would not greatly impact his offseason routine or his ability to prepare for 2017:

I don’t think that will be any problem. The offseason should feel good. Hopefully not setbacks or anything. So yeah, I’ll get ready for spring.

Although he’s had a few clunkers mixed in, the young right-hander was beginning to look like a potential building block for New York’s rotation. In his last three starts before the injury, Green had allowed just five earned runs in 16.2 innings of work, striking out 20 and allowing three walks.

In the short term, the Yankees are still scrambling to fill his rotation spot. Bryan Mitchell will be the first pitcher to get a crack at it, making his 2016 MLB debut Wednesday after missing the year with a fractured toe.

For his part, Green was relieved not to have to undergo surgery, telling Chad Jennings, “I was hoping for the best, and I guess you could consider this, like, the best of the worst-case scenario.”