New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton is apparently so racked with injuries that he cannot even perform basic tasks just a month before the MLB season begins.
Stanton is in spring training with the Yankees and is preparing for the start of his ninth campaign in The Bronx.
But when asked by NJ.com how he’s been feeling, he admitted that the injuries in his elbows are so bad he will likely never heal while still playing.
When asked if the rest he had in the offseason healed his double tennis elbow, Stanton replied, ‘That’ll never be the case… Not while I’m in this line of work.’
‘You have your good days and bad days, just like your mood and everything.’
‘I can’t open a bottle,’ Stanton said. ‘I can’t open a bag of chips … a bag of anything. That’s the way it is.’
Giancarlo Stanton’s double tennis elbow is so bad that he ‘can’t open a bag of chips’
Stanton (R) has been prepping for the season with Aaron Judge (L) and Cody Bellinger (center)
Stanton has only played in 56 percent of the Yankees’ games since 2019 due to his injuries
The Yankees acquired Stanton in the 2017 offseason in a trade in exchange for a trio of players. But since 2019, the slugger has only appeared in 582 of a possible 1,032 games played – just over 56 percent.
Last year, Stanton missed the first 70 games of the Yankees’ season to rehab his elbow injuries.
Despite the severity of his ailment, Stanton has not undergone surgery and doesn’t seem too worried about it.
‘You get the surgery and you can go back to being in the general population in a few months, but my job is to put some of the most force into a batted ball,’ he told the outlet.
‘That’s not going to be fixed in surgery, and I don’t care what any doctor says because they don’t know what’s going on. What’s written (about my elbows) is what me and the Yankees give you.’
After missing the start of the season, Stanton returned in mid-June and finished the season with 77 games played, 24 home runs and 66 RBIs while hitting a .273 batting average.