Yankees' Giancarlo Stanton Returns From Injured List
Giancarlo Stanton returned from the injured list on Saturday morning, the Yankees announced.
The slugger is batting cleanup as New York's designated hitter on Saturday afternoon against the Tigers, set to make his first appearance in almost two weeks.
Outfielder Miguel Andújar was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre after Friday night's blowout win over Detroit, making space for Stanton on the active roster.
Stanton has been sidelined with ankle inflammation since he came out of a game against the Orioles on May 24. The injury was initially categorized as a right calf strain, a diagnosis that implied more of a significant stay on the injured list. Boone quickly clarified that Stanton was managing ankle inflammation instead. The expectation was the outfielder would be able to return after his allotted 10 days on the IL, if not a little bit after that.
Over 40 games in 2022, Stanton is hitting .285/.339/.523 with 11 home runs and 35 RBI. Those numbers aren't quite as impressive as fellow slugger Aaron Judge—who is on an MVP pace to start the 2022 campaign—but Stanton has played a key role in New York's early-season success.
Andújar is the odd man out, riding the Scranton Shuttle back to the RailRiders. That doesn't mean he played poorly during his latest opportunity in pinstripes, though. The 27-year-old looked good in left field while batting .250 (9-for-36) since May 24.
The problem for Andújar is there simply aren't too many other options. New York could've cut ties with Matt Carpenter or Marwin Gonzalez, but both have been valuable on the bench. While Gonzalez can play all over the diamond on defense (including shortstop), Carpenter has been a spark plug since he joined this club last week, already hitting four home runs.
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