{"id":221153,"date":"2026-06-17T06:40:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T06:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/221153\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T06:40:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T06:40:17","slug":"yankees-provide-encouraging-update-on-austin-wells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/221153\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees Provide Encouraging Update on Austin Wells"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/mlb\/new-york-yankees\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Yankees<\/a> could be getting one of their injured players back in the near future.<\/p>\n<p> On Tuesday, the Bronx Bombers announced that starting catcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/mlb\/players\/austin_wells\/902594\" class=\"yard_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Austin Wells<\/a> will begin a rehab assignment with the Triple-A Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. Wells, 26, was  <a href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/mlb\/new-york-yankees\/austin-wells-placed-on-injured-list\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">placed on the 10-day injured list<\/a> on June 6 with cervical headaches; these headaches would have originated from a neck injury, but it fortunately looks like Wells will not be sidelined long-term.<\/p>\n<p>Wells is enduring a brutal 2026 season so far, especially at the plate. In 169 plate appearances, he&#8217;s hitting just .166\/.278\/.255 with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/players\/austin-wells\/27562\/stats\/batting\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">53 wRC+<\/a> and 26.6% strikeout rate. With near-nonexistent production from both Wells and J.C. Escarra, the Yankees&#8217; catching situation has been a disaster offensively. As a result, they are expected to acquire catching help before the August 3 trade deadline.<\/p>\n<p>However, Wells is still young and has shown in the past that he can be an asset to the Yankee lineup. In 2024, he finished third in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/awards\/awards_2024.shtml#all_AL_ROY_voting\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AL Rookie of the Year voting<\/a> with a .718 OPS, and he hit 21 home runs while driving in 71 runs last year. While his production has cratered this year, Wells at least remains a solid defensive catcher, particularly when it comes to framing.<\/p>\n<p>The Yankees have not specified how long Wells would be on his rehab assignment for, but they shouldn&#8217;t try to rush him back to the big leagues. In addition to allowing his neck to heal, Wells can concentrate on rediscovering his hitting prowess down in Triple-A. New York does miss his defense at the moment, but his offensive upside is why the organization has faith in him as their starting catcher for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n<p>As of now, the Yankees will roll with a catching tandem of Escarra and Ali Sanchez, with the latter getting his first two hits and his first RBI in pinstripes on Sunday against the <a href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/mlb\/toronto-blue-jays\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Toronto Blue Jays<\/a>. Escarra will get the start tonight as New York begins a three-game series against the <a href=\"https:\/\/athlonsports.com\/mlb\/chicago-white-sox\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chicago White Sox<\/a> in Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Yankees could be getting one of their injured players back in the near future. On&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-221153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}