NEW YORK — Sporting a metal brace on his right arm a little over two weeks after undergoing an internal brace procedure on the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow, Yankees right-hander Clarke Schmidt said he is aiming to return after next season’s All-Star break.
“It wasn’t a full reconstruction,” Schmidt said before New York opened a four-game series against Tampa Bay on Monday. “They didn’t have to go in and put a new ligament in. Basically, what happened was the ligament was kind of tearing off the bone, so they just reattached it to the bone and they didn’t have go to add any ligament. So that was very encouraging on that part.”
Schmidt had the surgery performed by Dr. Keith Meister in Dallas on July 11 and was told the recovery would take about a year.
“When they say Tommy John, it’s kind of like an umbrella term these days, but from what I was told and everything that I’ve been informed of, it’s kind of the best case of the Tommy John,” Schmidt said. “So around a year, like 11 to 12 months, 11 to 13 months, so very encouraged by that. I think if it was full reconstruction, it would be looking at 14, 16 months. So I think we dodged a major bullet with that.
“Obviously it’s hard to circle a day now, but a little bit after the All-Star break. I know that I’ll definitely be a factor next year. So very encouraged by that.”
Schmidt said he first felt soreness when he pitched 5⅔ innings against the Cleveland Guardians on June 4. He made five starts after that, spanning 29⅔ innings, and threw 103 pitches in seven hitless innings against the Baltimore Orioles on June 21.
The Yankees pushed his next start to June 28, and he exited after three innings July 3 at Toronto because of forearm soreness.
Schmidt began the season on the injured list while recovering from right rotator cuff tendinitis.
Schmidt was 4-4 with a 3.32 ERA in 14 starts this season before having the surgery. He previously had Tommy John surgery in May 2017, a month before the Yankees selected him with the 16th pick in the amateur draft out of South Carolina.
