Jordan Montgomery was rolling around on the grass near the pitcher’s mound, writhing in pain.
It was just three batters into Sunday night’s game and a Xander Bogaerts grounder had ricocheted off Montgomery’s left leg. He’d hopped, then fallen and then he was on the ground with trainers looking over him, and the lefty’s first start of the 2022 season looked like it had ended just after it began.
A couple hours earlier, Yankees manager Aaron Boone had been asked about the sustainability of using his bullpen the way he had during the season’s first two games. His answer, in short: it is not sustainable.
The Yankees used seven pitchers on Saturday. They used eight on Friday. And here was Montgomery, one out into Sunday’s game, on the ground, with Clarke Schmidt getting up in a hurry in the bullpen.
It looked like Montgomery was done. And then, as quickly as he had gone down, he was back up.
He did not leave the game. And despite struggling through the first inning, he ultimately did not pitch all that poorly.
“It’s fine,” Montgomery said of his leg after the game, which the Yankees lost 4-3 to the Red Sox. “It’s gonna be a little swollen, but I’ll be ready in five days.”
Montgomery pitched 3 ¹/₃ innings, giving up two runs in the first before settling in for a solid if uninspiring 58 pitches. He finished with three earned runs allowed and four strikeouts on four hits, though his constitution was the most noteworthy piece of the performance.
“Obviously to see him rolling around like that in pain was certainly concerning,” Boone said. “Pretty gutsy effort to kinda walk it off and shake it off.”
Montgomery said he passed a series of tests and returned a clean X-ray. Between innings, he put heat on it and walked around to try and stay warm, though he and Boone seemed confident it wouldn’t affect his next start.
“We’ll see how he is [Monday],” Boone said. “But I think the preliminary looks at least a little bit encouraging.”
He and Schmidt — who pitched the next 2 ²/₃ innings, giving up his only hit on Bobby Dalbec’s go-ahead home run — gave the Yankees’ bullpen the closest thing it will get to a light night of work.
With pitchers coming off a shortened spring training due to the lockout and still ramping up their workloads, it is expected most starters won’t go deep into games early in the season. That compounds a reality that already exists in an era where most managers would rather avoid their pitchers facing a lineup for the third time in a game.
Montgomery said he would have preferred to get through four or five innings, but was happy with his outing.
The Yankees, it’s safe to assume, were happy Montgomery was merely able to stay upright.
“I’m sure he’s gonna be pretty stiff,” Boone said. “He’s pretty stiff already right now. Gutsy effort by him.”