Early a.m. injury updates: A-Rod, IPK, JoPo

Injuries are swirling around the Yankees right now. With Brian Bruney, Xavier Nady and Alex Rodriguez on the shelf, the Yanks’ depth has nearly vanished. The news on Monday got both worse and better at the same time. I’ll run it down.

First, for those of you asleep at 1:30 a.m. when the Yankee game ended last night, the Bombers lost Jorge Posada to a hamstring injury. Posada hurt his hamstring sliding into second base in the 6th inning and had to leave the game. He’ll get an MRI later today, and Joe Girardi said during the post-game press conference that Posada will miss a few days.

Jorge leads the Yankees with 20 RBIs. He will be nearly impossible to replace in the lineup, but the Yankees will have to make a roster move. The team needs a second healthy catcher, and Francisco Cervelli, the only other catcher on the 40-man, could be Bronx-bound today. Cervelli is hitting just .190/.266/.310 in AA.

In better news, Alex Rodriguez could rejoin the Yankees by Friday. A-Rod went 1 for 5 with a walk in Extended Spring Training yesterday. His lone hit was a home run off of rehabbing Phillies’ reliever J.C. Romero. The Yankees expect A-Rod to play again today, and the team will then determine his schedule.

In speaking with reporters, Joe Girardi said that A-Rod could be activated on Friday in Baltimore. He doesn’t need to slide in game conditions, and if a Minor League rehab assignment would simply afford A-Rod some work on his hand-eye coordination, the Yanks will skip that luxury to bring him back to the Bigs. “So much of it just depends on how he feels and when he believes he’s ready to go,” Girardi said. “I have not really put a date on it, because I want to see how he bounces back. It’s up to him. When he feels that he’s ready, we’re probably going to take him back.”

Meanwhile, in the A-Rod story linked above, Bryan Hoch checked in with an Ian Kennedy update. The Yanks’ youngster is currently suffering from a vasospasm in his right middle finger. Doctors checked out Kennedy on Monday and prescribed more rest. He’ll have another exam on Thursday and is currently in a holding pattern.