Yankees’ Clarke Schmidt solid in first outing since Tommy John surgery…
Fourteen months and 5 days faraway from Tommy John surgery, Clarke Schmidt made his return to a big league mound Wednesday.
Dealing with some nerves and far more adrenaline than he skilled on his rehab project, Schmidt struck out a pair and allowed two bloop hits in the seventh inning of what grew to become a 5-4 loss to the Twins in 13 innings at Target Field.
“Emotional,” said Schmidt, whose two runners had been stranded by Brent Headrick to maintain it a 2-0 deficit at the time. “Obviously a long journey and not an easy journey at all. There’s a lot of ups and downs throughout the process, but really good to be able to get back out there.”
With his dad in attendance, Schmidt threw 24 pitches, 13 for strikes, while topping out at 95.8 mph on his fastball.
Now that he has the first game under his belt, the Yankees are hoping Schmidt can settle right into a bullpen function to provide them another choice to pitch important innings down the stretch and into the playoffs.
The right-hander will probably be restricted to 1 or one-plus innings at a time, and he won’t pitch on back-to-back days.
But they imagine he may also help, with Wednesday providing some encouragement in that regard.
“I thought he looked good, he looked pretty settled, actually,” Boone said. “Hopefully as he goes now he’ll get a little sharper.”
Clarke Schmidt throws a pitch during the Yankees’ 5-4, 13-inning loss to the Twins on Sept. 16, 2026 in Minneapolis. AP
Carlos Lagrange was activated off the injured listing at Triple-A on Wednesday, two and a half months after being shut down with a capsular sprain of the proper shoulder, and struck out two in a scoreless inning while topping out at 102.1 mph together with his fastball.
The injury got here as the top pitching prospect was making the transition from starter to reliever in hopes of impacting the Yankees bullpen in the second half of the season.
Though he now seems to be a protracted shot to really attain the big leagues this 12 months, it was encouraging that he was at the least capable of make it again to pitch in games at Triple-A.
“Obviously getting shut down for a while, the shoulder always makes you nervous,” Boone said. “But he’s responded well to the downtime and now the buildup. So the fact that he’s activated, I’m glad that he’s able to get back this year and hopefully pitch a little bit and see what we have.”
Trent Grisham (proper hamstring pressure) has “gotten up to a pretty decent speed” in his working progression, Boone said, while mixing in baseball actions.
But he stays without a timeline for a return.
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