Yankees place Giancarlo Stanton on IL, await MRI results

NEW YORK — The Yankees placed Giancarlo Stanton on the 10-day injured list Sunday with a left hamstring strain.

Stanton suffered the injury in the seventh inning of Saturday’s 6-1 win over the Minnesota Twins. In his final at-bat of the game, Stanton laced a two-run double 403 feet to the deepest part of left-center field at Yankee Stadium before being replaced by a pinch runner.

Manager Aaron Boone said he did not see it immediately, but Stanton signaled to the Yankees dugout after feeling a tweak in his hamstring as he decelerated into second base. Boone said Stanton would undergo an MRI on Sunday to determine the severity of the injury.

“Let’s see what the MRI says,” Boone said before Sunday’s game against the Twins. “He was moving around OK after the game. But he definitely felt like, before even getting the MRI, that it was an IL stint. So we’ll see what we got today.”

Since 2011, Stanton has been on the injured list in all but the 2014, 2017 and 2018 seasons, and this is his fifth straight season with some type of injury.

Last year, he missed more than a month because of tendinitis in his left Achilles; the Yankees were 11-17 with him out. Earlier in the 2022 season, Stanton missed nine games with right ankle inflammation. In 2021, Stanton played 139 games, his highest total since 2018, but also missed time with a left quadriceps strain.

“Obviously, he’s got an awesome build and physique,” Boone said when asked why Stanton seems to suffer lower-body injuries so frequently. “He works very hard to try and avoid these things, but unfortunately it’s something that’s happened with him. … I guess if we knew the answer. … So, I don’t know.”

Stanton, 33, is batting .269 with four home runs and 11 RBIs through 13 games. The five-time All-Star and former National League MVP is a career .264/.353/.537 hitter with 382 home runs and 982 RBIs in 1,447 games with the Marlins (2010-17) and Yankees.

“There’s no good timing for it, obviously, and I know he’s really frustrated,” Boone said of losing Stanton, who shares the team RBI lead with outfielder Franchy Cordero. “But it’s an opportunity for, frankly, people we have a lot of confidence in, that we can mix and match and get some other people back here in the next days, in the next couple of weeks. And we gotta make do.”

In a corresponding move, the Yankees called up infielder Oswald Peraza from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Boone said Peraza would be an option at shortstop and second base. But with third baseman Josh Donaldson (hamstring) almost ready to come off the injured list later in the week, it might be a brief stay for Peraza on the big league roster because of a numbers crunch on the 26-man roster.

Donaldson will play a rehab game with Double-A Somerset on Tuesday ahead of being activated Wednesday, Boone said. Donaldson is expected to be available for Game 2 of a three-game set against the Los Angeles Angels.

After a late-season call-up last year, Peraza hit .306 (15-for-49) in 18 games with the Yankees. Peraza, 22, is batting .289 with four RBIs and five stolen bases in nine games this season in Triple-A after losing the spring training shortstop competition with Anthony Volpe.

“Of course, it was disappointing for me after spring training,” Peraza told ESPN. “I felt that I failed at my goal, making the team for Opening Day. But now that I am here, I will help the team in whichever way I can. It is very disappointing to see Stanton get injured, especially knowing what he can do for us at the plate. In the meantime, we will do our best without him and hope he comes back soon.”

With Stanton out, the Yankees might have an additional option in the outfield soon, as Harrison Bader is doing well in his recovery from a left oblique strain. Boone said Bader has been doing full baseball activities, which he planned to continue this week before the club schedules him for a rehab assignment.

“I have been encouraged, but there’s some ways to go and it’s a new territory for me in terms of feeling slightly different than how I normally feel,” Bader said after finishing his pregame routine. “If you have an oblique strain, it’s a little funky injury, it’s tricky. Just staying focused and leaning on my trainers to help me get through, and so far, everything’s been great. There’s been no worry, no pain, so it’s really just a matter of continuing to check off boxes.”

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.