TORONTO _ The Yankees mostly avoided the injury bug during spring training until the very end when first baseman Greg Bird went down, requiring surgery on his right foot.
Now it's Aaron Hicks.
The Yankees announced Friday they placed the center fielder on the 10-day disabled list with a right intercostal muscle strain.
Billy McKinney, who hit just .167 in the spring but had five home runs, was called up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
There had been no indications of an injury with the 28-year-old Hicks, who went 2-for-4 in the Yankees' 6-1 season-opening victory over the Blue Jays Thursday.
The switch-hitter entered spring as the presumed starter in center field and, though he hit just .200, nonetheless was never in danger of losing that status, especially with the early-spring injury to Jacoby Ellsbury.
Hicks supplanted Ellsbury as the starter last season, but he only played in 88 games, spending two different stints on the DL, once because of a right oblique strain and once because of a left oblique strain.
