ANAHEIM, Calif. _ CC Sabathia spoke optimistically the night before.
"Hopefully (Wednesday) I'll wake up and feel a lot better," he said after leaving Tuesday night's loss to the Angels after four innings with what the Yankees called a left hamstring strain.
Though Sabathia did wake up feeling better, it wasn't enough to avoid the disabled list, though the Yankees didn't immediately announce it.
What the club did announce was that the veteran left-hander underwent an MRI later in the day Wednesday, which revealed a Grade 2 hamstring strain. It's the same injury Sabathia suffered in late September 2013.
Though all such injuries heal differently, the general timetable for a Grade 2 hamstring strain is 4-8 weeks.
Before the game, while not dismissing the DL as a possibility, manager Job Girardi sounded hopeful in speaking about his 36-year-old left-hander, who is 7-2 with a 3.46 ERA.
"He feels OK," Girardi said. "He's walking around pretty good. He talked about that he felt better than expected ... I think it's always encouraging that you don't wake up really sore."
Girardi was waiting to hear from the Yankees team physician, Dr. Christopher Ahmad, who was evaluating the MRI results.
"We'll see what Dr. Ahmad says," Girardi said, speaking to the media before he had a chance to consult with Ahmad. "And then we'll have a determination of what we're going to do. We haven't done (the DL) yet just because we haven't heard from Dr. Ahmad to see what he says,"
Sabathia's next turn in the rotation was slated to be Sunday in Oakland and Girardi, who wasn't available to the media until after Wednesday's game, wasn't prepared to speculate on who might take that turn.
Chad Green, who spot-started Sunday against Baltimore and went two innings, is a little more stretched out and would be "a candidate," Girardi said.
But it also depends somewhat on how the next few games go. The Yankees, with a bullpen Girardi described as "pretty fried," brought up right-hander Ronald Herrera, who had been starting for Double-A Trenton, on Wednesday.
The 22-year-old Herrera, who has a "decent fastball and secondary selection" and "knows how to pitch to and is not afraid of contact," according to one scout, was 7-0 with a 1.07 ERA in eight starts with Trenton.
Ben Heller, who allowed the game-winning hit Tuesday, was sent back to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
"We needed someone who can give us distance," Girardi said.
He said another option might be to push Saturday's starter, Masahiro Tanaka, to Sunday and plug in Green, or someone else, in Tanaka's spot. Luis Cessa and Bryan Mitchell are two possibilities on the 40-man roster as is the organization's top pitching prospect, Chance Adams, who is not.
"There's a lot of different things," Girardi said. "For us, it's going to be determined in the next few days. We need to get through the next couple days before I make a determination."
Sabathia said he felt something "grab" while facing Martin Maldanado in the fourth inning Tuesday.
"I thought it may be a cramp," he said. "Didn't feel it when I was standing there, then went to push off the last time and it hurt."
The loss of Sabathia for an extended period could be significant. He is 5-0 with a 1.11 ERA in his previous five starts. When he left Tuesday's game, he had allowed an unearned run and three hits and had struck out four.
"Obviously, it's going to be a tough one," Chase Headley said of losing Sabathia. "But I think one thing we've shown this year is we can play through some adversity and have some key players go down and have somebody able to fill in. So we're just going to have to do that again."
