Yankees’ Zack Britton will be late start to 2021 season after doctors advise he have surgery to remove bone chip in pitching elbow; Aaron Boone not worried

TAMPA — Zack Britton’s slow start to spring training has become a late start to the season. The Yankees most reliable reliever will have surgery to remove a bone chip from his left elbow on Monday, because he has to be quarantined for a few days before surgery. That will be followed by several weeks where Britton cannot throw and several more weeks of ramping back up.

It is likely Britton will not be back in the Yankees’ revamped bullpen for a few months.

“That’s disappointing,” Britton said Wednesday afternoon. “I came in, obviously, lost a lot of weight from the COVID that I had during the offseason, so I was a little bit behind anyway. Adding this to that, it’s been a pretty frustrating couple of weeks.

“But, it’s gonna get taken care of and I’ll be able to finish this year and help the team,” Britton added. “So that’s the most important thing.”

Britton said that he has never had a bone chip in his elbow before and only felt it after he threw a bullpen on Sunday. The results of the CT scan showed a bone chip, which Britton said he might have pitched with if it had come up in the season.

“The ligaments and tendons look great in the elbow but the CT scan showed that I had a bone chip in the elbow,” Britton said. “Could I rehab through it and possibly come back and it wouldn’t impact me? There was a chance, but we’d like the chances better of me coming back to season and pitching at a high level if I just got to remove now.

“If this was during the season, I’m not sure surgery would be the decision,” Britton said, “but due to the fact that it’s spring training through all the advice from you know multiple doctors, it seems like this is the smartest thing to do if I want to pitch at a high level.”

Now the Yankees have to find a way to fill the void left by Britton for a few months. While Britton was pretty exclusively a set-up man for Aroldis Chapman, Aaron Boone said now the sixth, seventh and the eighth innings will be a more fluid situation.

“We’ll treat that probably more on a matchup basis. Obviously, Chappy will close and then whether it’s (Justin) Wilson or (Darren) O’Day, (Chad Green) or other guys that step up and emerge,” the Yankees manager said. “Otherwise, it will probably be more matchup related. What do we have available on a given day obviously from a usage standpoint. Then just trying to put guys in the best matchups possible to be successful.”

Boone said he doesn’t need to add another lefty to replace Britton since Wilson is also a lefty.

“We’ll take the best available guys and try and put together the best available bullpen,” Boone said. “Obviously we still have at least a couple of lefties down there and Chappy and Wilson, but whether another lefty emerges or not, I don’t feel it’s necessary with Zack down.”

The Yankees invested in their bullpen to be a weapon in 2018, including signing Britton, who they originally acquired in a deadline trade in 2018. They also brought in Adam Ottavino, thinking he would give them a solid seventh and eighth-inning bridge to Chapman in the ninth. Ottavino did not work out in the playoffs, so they dumped his salary on the Red Sox this winter and brought in O’Day and Wilson. They also have Nick Nelson, an interesting prospect who made his major league debut last season and has been effective in relief and as a starter in the minors.

Boone said the Yankees have been through this before (in 2019 and 2020) and are therefore prepared.

“One of the things I’ve said, certainly from the start of this camp and in the winter as we’ve put this roster together, is I like the depth that we’ve created.” Boone said. “I like the talent that we’ve accumulated. Not just one through 25 or 26 but beyond. I feel like there’s a lot of people right now in that room that are capable of filling significant roles based on whatever attrition we occur over the course of spring or during the season.

“Inevitably, somebody else will go down at some point and it’s an opportunity for people to step up, but it’s an opportunity for people that we believe are capable of stepping up,” Boone continued. “That’s an important distinction.”