TORONTO — After Jameson Taillon re-injured the partially torn tendon in his right ankle Tuesday night, it’s anyone’s guess whether the right-hander will be able to take the mound again this season.
“I’m not sure,’’ Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Wednesday. “It’s tough to tell right now. Based on him [Tuesday] night, coming out [of the game], maybe not. Based on [Wednesday] and how it looks, at least it’s in play, still.”
Taillon said he felt the injury about three pitches before he threw his final pitch of the night against the Blue Jays, adding it was in a different area than the previous injury and left him “tentative” about pushing off.
He’s hoping to get another MRI exam to see if there’s further damage, since surgery could be an option, or if he might be able to see if he can pitch again this season and just deal with the pain.
“Is it worth it to keep pushing through this [or] can I make it worse?” Taillon said. “Definitely, our backs are against the wall with time.”
Without Taillon, the Yankees’ rotation includes Gerrit Cole, Jordan Montgomery, Corey Kluber and Nestor Cortes Jr.
Cole, who started Wednesday against Toronto, will figure to be in line to pitch either a wild-card play-in game or the wild-card game itself on Tuesday.
If the Yankees get that far and advance to the ALDS, they may have some decisions to make about how they want to handle their pitching staff, with a reliable arm potentially unavailable.
Do they trust Kluber to start in the postseason, or would they rather go with an opener in Luis Severino or Domingo German?
They have a lot of work to do before they get to that point and would gladly deal with that kind of scenario if it meant they were playing well into October.
But it’s another discouraging setback for Taillon, who returned this season from a second Tommy John surgery and bounced back from a slow start to the season with an excellent five-start stretch in July.
Unlike previous injuries to his arm, though, the ankle woes were unexpected, Taillon said.
“It was a little bit surprising to me [Tuesday] night,’’ said Taillon, who reported no issues in a three-inning rehab outing with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in the lead-up to Tuesday’s start.
“I felt I tested it and threw with intensity,’’ Taillon said. “I felt this was just a freak incident. I’m still not 100 percent sure how it happened.”
He chalked up his previous elbow injuries to poor mechanics and spent much of his rehab from Tommy John surgery refining his delivery in an attempt to improve his arm health and durability.
Taillon’s previous comebacks have left him confident he can return from this, as well.
“I’m definitely battle-tested and been through a lot,’’ Taillon said.
Unlike with his arm woes, Taillon doesn’t believe this one will impact him long term, but he added he’d be wary about making sure any change to his delivery doesn’t put his “arm at risk’’ again.
In the short term, the Yankees may have to get creative with their staff, making the recent returns of Severino and Michael King, as well as the expected returns of German and Jonathan Loaisiga even more vital for a potential playoff run.