{"id":2994,"date":"2025-05-04T13:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T13:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/2994\/"},"modified":"2025-05-04T13:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T13:53:08","slug":"yankees-notes-schmidt-volpe-chisholm-lombard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/2994\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees Notes: Schmidt, Volpe, Chisholm, Lombard"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Yankees were expected to send right-hander Clarke Schmidt<\/a> to the mound against the Rays yesterday, but the right-hander wound up scratched from his start yesterday. MLB.com\u2019s Bryan Hoch<\/a> notes that Schmidt told reporters that he\u2019s dealing with some soreness in his left side, but fortunately it appears to be fairly minor. Hoch adds that Schmidt even told the Yankees he would be able to take the ball yesterday, but the club opted to scratch him and push his start back to this coming Tuesday. Chris Kirschner of The Athletic<\/a> notes that, per manager Aaron Boone<\/a>, Schmidt underwent an MRI that came back clearn, suggesting the issue is a minor one.<\/p>\n

That Schmidt\u2019s soreness appears to be fairly manageable is surely a huge relief for New York. With Gerrit Cole<\/a> out for the year and both Luis Gil<\/a> and Marcus Stroman<\/a> currently shelved with injuries of their own, losing Schmidt just three starts into his 2025 season would be a brutal blow for the Yanks. Allan Winans<\/a> remains in Triple-A as a potential spot starter option, but the club\u2019s depth is largely being used in the rotation already with Carlos Carrasco<\/a> and Will Warren<\/a> currently getting regular starts.<\/p>\n

Schmidt\u2019s 14 2\/3 innings of work so far this year have hardly been inspiring, but it\u2019s worth remembering that he\u2019s just one year removed from posting a sterling 2.85 ERA and 3.58 FIP across 16 starts. That strong performance in 2024 suggested front-half of the rotation potential within Schmidt, and perhaps being careful with the side issue he\u2019s currently dealing with is the best way to tap into as much of that potential as possible in a season where little is working within the club\u2019s rotation aside from Max Fried<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Turning to the other major Yankees injury news from yesterday, Anthony Volpe<\/a> had a bit of an injury scare in the eighth inning of yesterday\u2019s game. Hoch writes<\/a> that Volpe heard a \u201cpop\u201d in his left shoulder while attempting to field a grounder.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt happened quick and it was scary, but after that, I felt OK and I felt like I had my strength,\u201d Volpe said, as relayed by Hoch. \u201cI\u2019ve never really had anything else pop or dislocate or anything like that, so I have nothing to compare it to.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Hoch notes, those encouraging early comments can\u2019t necessarily be taken as gospel just days after Volpe\u2019s double play partner Jazz Chisholm Jr.<\/a> expressed optimism that his injury was a fairly minor one just before being placed on the injured list for what figures to be a four-to-six week absence. An MRI of Chisholm\u2019s oblique revealed three high-grade tears in the area, though fortunately the volume of tears does not appear to have significantly altered Chisholm\u2019s timetable for return as the second baseman still expects to return in that four-to-six week time frame.<\/p>\n

Chisholm\u2019s injury is already testing the club\u2019s middle infield depth and forcing a combination of Jorbit Vivas<\/a> and Pablo Reyes<\/a> to handle the keystone for the foreseeable future. That makes the idea of an injury for Volpe all the more concerning, but Hoch suggested that the shortstop will likely be sent for an MRI before he\u2019s fully cleared to play again despite the fact that he finished yesterday\u2019s game and already underwent an x-ray that revealed no structural damage. Even if the Yankees weren\u2019t already suffering from a dearth of infield depth, losing Volpe would be a serious blow given that he\u2019s putting up such encouraging numbers on offense.<\/p>\n

After Volpe\u2019s first two years saw him post well-below offensive numbers buoyed by Gold Glove-caliber defense at shortstop, the 24-year-old is actually hitting an impressive .233\/.326\/.442 with ten doubles, five homers, and a 10.6% walk rate in 33 games. That\u2019s good for a 121 wRC+ so far this year, and Volpe\u2019s excellent batted ball data suggests he may actually producing less than his underlying performance would suggest he should be. It\u2019s an exciting potential breakout performance for the Yanks, and the fans in the Bronx are surely waiting with bated breathe for their potential budding star at shortstop to return to the lineup.<\/p>\n

All the injuries piling up for the Yankees in the rotation and around the infield likely have many fans operating with one eye on the July 31 trade deadline. There\u2019s plenty of room for improvement on this Yankees club, but there\u2019s at least one prospect the club is expected to keep out of trade talks this summer as they pursue back-to-back World Series appearances after losing in five games to the Dodgers in last year\u2019s Fall Classic. According to Brendan Kuty of The Athletic<\/a>, that prospect is young infielder George Lombard Jr.<\/a><\/p>\n

As relayed by Kuty, the club does not expect Lombard to help in the majors this year but nonetheless he\u2019s viewed by some evaluators as the club\u2019s only \u201cuntouchable\u201d prospect, with Kuty suggesting that it would require a \u201cGodfather\u201d offer to convince the Yankees to part with the young infielder. Still just 19 until next month, Lombard was the club\u2019s first-rounder back in 2023 and is so far hitting an excellent .329\/.496\/.488 at the High-A level this year, with a promotion to Double-A at some point in the near future potentially in the cards.<\/p>\n

Given that the Yankees (per Kuty) viewed Lombard as untouchable last season, when he slashed just .231\/.338\/.334 across two levels of A-ball, it\u2019s hardly a shock that they aren\u2019t inclined to trade him now that he appears to have broken out in such a substantial way. Still, with controllable aces like Pablo Lopez<\/a> already seeing their names swirl in the rumor mill, refusing to part with Lombard could make it difficult for the Yankees to land a top-flight starter this summer in what figures to be a very competitive market for pitching talent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Yankees were expected to send right-hander Clarke Schmidt to the mound against the Rays yesterday, but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1205,5,1216,2107,1824,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-2994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-anthony-volpe","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-clarke-schmidt","11":"tag-george-lombard-jr","12":"tag-jazz-chisholm","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114449901433527118","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}