With Gardner Ailing, Yankees Call Up Outfielder Ben Gamel
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The Yankees are calling up outfielder Ben Gamel.
The move comes a day after Brett Gardner was hit by a pitch on his right elbow during Wednesday's win at Baltimore. X-rays on Gardner's elbow were negative, but he will be out of the lineup Thursday.
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Gamel, the Yankees' 10th-round draft pick in 2010, could make his major league debut when he joins the team for Thursday's game against the Orioles, although he is not in the starting lineup.
In 23 games with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre this season, Gamel, 23, was hitting .286 with a homer, nine RBIs and seven stolen bases.
Gardner was the second Yankees starter lost to injury in as many nights. On Tuesday, Alex Rodriguez suffered a strained right hamstring and was placed on the 15-day disabled list.
Gardner is "going to try to go through some BP in a cage to see if he can swing, but we just felt like, if we didn't have Gardy available, we really had two guys on the bench," Girardi told WFAN's Mike Francesa on Thursday. "You had an extra catcher and an extra infielder, so it really kind of strapped you. So we felt that we better bring up Ben Gamel. We can put him in for defense late. We can put him in to run the bases for some of our guys.
"This has been a kid that really came on to the scene last year and played extremely well."
To make room for Gamel, the Bombers optioned left-handed relief pitcher James Pazos, who was just recalled Tuesday when Rodriguez went on the DL, to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
The demotion came on Pazos' 25th birthday.
