Mark Teixeira done for 2015 with fracture in right leg

Mark Teixeira’s season is over. Brian Cashman told reporters this afternoon that tests performed on Teixeira’s shin today found a previously undetected fracture. He is done for the year. The small fracture comes with a three-month recovery time, so Teixeira is expected to be ready for Spring Training.

Teixeira, 35, suffered the injury when he fouled a pitch off his shin about four weeks ago. He’d been through all sorts of tests that originally diagnosed him with a bone bruise. Those tests failed to show the fracture for whatever reason. The injury hadn’t healed as hoped in recent weeks, so much so that Teixeira was still walking around the clubhouse on crutches yesterday.

In 111 games this season, Teixeira has hit .255/.357/.548 (144 wRC+) with 31 home runs. He was their best hitter and their team MVP prior the injury. Still is, really. Teixeira has played in only 372 of 624 possible games (59.6%) since the start of 2012 due to a variety of injuries, most notably wrist surgery that limited him to 15 games in 2013.

With Teixeira out, Greg Bird steps in as the full-time first base going forward. He has hit .241/.319/.458 (112 wRC+) with five home runs in his first 24 big league games, which is great on the “22-year-old rookie thrown into a postseason race” scale, but a big step down from Teixeira. So it goes.