Yankees Clarke Schmidt solid in first outing…
Fourteen months and 5 days eliminated from Tommy John surgical procedure, Clarke Schmidt made his return to a big league mound Wednesday.
Dealing with some nerves and a lot more adrenaline than he skilled on his rehab task, Schmidt struck out a pair and allowed two bloop hits in the seventh inning of what turned 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 keep 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 sport under his belt, the Yankees are hoping Schmidt can settle into a bullpen position to give them another option to pitch important innings down the stretch and into the playoffs.
The right-hander will doubtless be restricted to one or one-plus innings at a time, and he is not going to pitch on back-to-back days.
But they imagine he can help, with Wednesday offering 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 record at Triple-A on Wednesday, two and a half months after being shut down with a capsular sprain of the appropriate shoulder, and struck out two in a scoreless inning while topping out at 102.1 mph 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 long shot to truly attain the big leagues this 12 months, it was encouraging that he was at least ready to make it back to pitch in video 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 operating development, Boone said, while mixing in baseball actions.
But he stays without a timeline for a return.
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