New York Yankees left fielder Brett Gardner had to undergo surgery on a "core muscle" on October 16th. Gardner played most, if not all of September with a abdominal injury. The team announced this procedure on Wednesday afternoon.
Gardner, 31, signed a four-year, $52 million extension before last season. The price tag was huge, but the amount of effort Gardner gives on a daily basis is very reasonable and easy to understand as to why the Yankees offered him that deal.
Rumor is that this surgery will not hurt Gardner's recovery process coming into the spring. However, if things don't go well with the recovery, then of course that will set him back. The good news is that this injury is NOT a hernia - which most people in the organization first believed was the injury.
Gardner went onto Sirius XM/MLB Network Radio and released this statement, "I think that here in the next week or two, I'll be pretty darn close to 100 percent and just be able to go through my normal offseason routine. That's one of the reasons we just went ahead and got it done after the season." Gardner went on to say he appreciated all of the fans support and well wishes.
The timetable for Gardner's rehab time is uncertain, but the rumor is he will be 100% by end of November, or first of December. Maybe the reason why the Yankees didn't make the playoffs was due to the nagging injury from their best outfielder, or maybe it was being distracted by Derek Jeter retiring. One thing is fore sure, you can't make excuses for a organization who's fan base wants wins, wins, and more wins every single season.
If you are a Yankees fan, don't worry about Gardner, he will be perfectly fine. However, if you are a Yankee fan are you disgusted by what came out on early Wednesday evening about Alex Rodriguez? If you didn't know, A-Rod came clean to the DEA about his usage of performance-enhancing drugs in a private meeting. More on the A-Rod story to come later on.