Mark Teixeira knew something was wrong almost immediately with his left calf. But in great American fashion, the Yankees first baseman clung to that age-old medical cure-all:
Maybe it will go away.
It didn’t.
And now, Teixeira said he could miss up to two weeks with what was called a Grade 1 left calf strain. Manager Joe Girardi figures his switch-hitting power guy is out the remainder of the series with Toronto and probably the following series against Baltimore.
“I had a groundball foul ball and took the first step out of the box and felt something kind of grab,” Teixeira said about his fourth inning at-bat. “I thought I could run through it, finish the at-bat and drew a walk, but instead of loosening up as I was running it kind of tightened up.”
Teixeira limped home from second on a Russell Martin hit and immediately headed for the runway to the Yankees’ clubhouse. He left for an MRI exam at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and spoke after the Yanks suffered a disheartening 8-7 loss to Toronto in 11 innings.
“I knew something wasn’t right. It was severe enough to where I knew I had to get out of the game,” Teixeira said, noting “it could be as little as a week, it could be two weeks” for his absence.
“It hurts. It’s hard to replace middle-of-the-order guys,” Girardi said. “He’s one of the switch hitters we use to break things up. … I don’t see him playing in this series. I’m not even sure I see him playing in the next series, just by the way I saw him run. Calves can be really tricky. I’m concerned.”
And concern over medical issues is becoming commonplace in a Yankees’ season when players are on a first-name bases with MRI and X-ray techs. The disabled list has included Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez, CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, Michael Pineda, Brett Gardner, Ivan Nova, Eric Chavez, David Robertson and Joba Chamberlain.
“We’ve lost a lot of people in the course of this year,” said Derek Jeter, who went on the DL with a Grade 1 calf strain last season. “Unfortunately he’s out. … So someone else is going to have to do the job. That’s basically what you have to do all year long … You have no choice. You can’t feel sorry for yourself. No one is going to feel sorry for us.”
Teixeira missed five games in the past month with a sore left wrist. The loss of his flawless defense at first can be just as hurtful as missing his 23 homers and 81 RBIs.
“For a guy like that to be out of our lineup, that’s a big deal,” Nick Swisher said.
“Just got to take care of it. If it’s a week, great. If it’s two weeks, not as great, but I’ll still have plenty of the season left,” Teixeira said optimistically. “It’s definitely an injury. It’s not like hopefully it feels better tomorrow.”
fred.kerber@nypost.com
