TAMPA — Ben Rortvedt has seen the jokes.
The Yankees catcher is just not huge on social media nowadays, however he’s conscious {that a} portion of followers playfully query his existence on-line. They accomplish that as a result of accidents have prevented the 25-year-old from seeing an excessive amount of motion because the Yankees acquired him, Josh Donaldson and Isiah Kiner-Falefa final March within the commerce that despatched Gary Sanchez and Gio Urshela to the Twins.
“It is pretty funny,” Rortvedt, within the flesh, mentioned Wednesday on the Yankees’ spring coaching advanced. “I haven’t been in front of people for spring training and stuff. So it’s kind of funny, but at the same time, I would love to get out there and show everyone.”
Rortvedt chuckled on the notion that he’s not actual, however his most up-to-date harm was no laughing matter.
Early on in camp, a glove-side finger harm sidelined him. Rortvedt expressed little concern at first, however then the finger took on a shade of blue.
“Catching-wise, your hand’s always pretty sore,” he defined. “So it’s something I never really thought was a problem until the discoloration.”
It turned out that an aneurysm of the posterior artery, close to Rortvedt’s left shoulder, brought about a circulation challenge in his finger, and he underwent surgical procedure on Feb. 22. Had Rortvedt continued to dismiss the finger, or had he not obtained a prognosis when he did, he mentioned amputation might have been within the playing cards, although he deferred to docs.
“It’s disappointing,” Rortvedt mentioned of lacking time, “however it’s additionally one thing that I’m glad that we acquired out of the way in which early. I’m glad that it’s one thing that we discovered as a result of that might have ended up being an precise actual downside down the street health-wise.
“It wasn’t going to fix itself at any point.”
Rortvedt added that the aneurysm wasn’t essentially a results of receiving, however catching huge league warmth amplified the issue together with his finger, because it wasn’t getting any blood circulate. Now, nevertheless, he’s again to throwing – Wednesday marked his third day of doing so because the surgical procedure – and he hopes to begin swinging and catching once more within the subsequent week or so.
“He’s doing really well,” Aaron Boone mentioned Tuesday, although the supervisor wasn’t positive precisely when Rortvedt will resume full-fledged baseball actions.
The aneurysm was not the backstop’s first harm with the Yankees. Rortvedt really joined the membership with an current indirect harm final spring, and he additionally underwent left knee surgical procedure for a meniscus clean-up in May.
Rortvedt has but to swimsuit up for the Bombers, however he appeared in 39 video games for the Twins in 2021, and he principally performed at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in 2022 after becoming a member of the Yankees group. A glove-first catcher, he slashed .221/.307/.396 with six house runs and 20 RBI over 42 video games for the RailRiders.
He additionally performed in 12 Dominican Winter League video games in the course of the offseason, although he hit simply .114.
Rortvedt is at present the one catcher on the Yankees’ 40-man roster in addition to main league locks Jose Trevino and Kyle Higashioka, a reality that he’s conscious of. He arrived at camp early to get further work in, however the aneurysm erased these positive factors and robbed him of an opportunity to impress coaches in video games this spring.
Still, he’s grateful to have prevented a graver scenario, and he’s wanting ahead to getting again on the sphere as quickly as he can.
“I just hope to pick up where I left off before this surgery happened,” he mentioned. “Hopefully this missed time isn’t a lot of missed time and I can pick up where I left off and just get healthy and get some at-bats and have a good season. And then I’ll be ready when it’s needed.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com