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<p>Michael King&#8217;s first big league spring training is going to have to wait.</p><p>With pitchers and catchers reporting on Wednesday, New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone announced that the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders starting pitcher experienced elbow discomfort after throwing a bullpen session last week ahead and underwent an MRI.</p><p>The Yankees have decided to shut the 23-year-old right-hander down for at least the next three weeks. At that point, King will receive another MRI and the team will make a decision on his future then.</p><p>&#8220;He had a stress reaction, basically, in his elbow,&#8221; Boone told reporters during his introductory press conference. &#8220;Feel like he&#8217;s probably going to be OK, but it&#8217;s something we need to shut him down for a few weeks. Then, hopefully at that point (head team physician Dr. Christopher S. Ahmad) will re-examine him and look at the images again and then hopefully we can start ramping him up, but obviously he&#8217;ll be considerably behind with that.&#8221;</p><p>The news regarding King is discouraging for him and the organization.</p><p>King had received his first big-league invite earlier this month after an impressive 2018 campaign that turned some heads as he rose all the way to Triple-A after starting the season with High-A Tampa. He finished the year with a strong performance with the RailRiders, pairing a 4-0 record with a 1.15 ERA in six starts.</p><p>While it was unlikely that King would have broken camp with New York, Boone did mention the right-handed prospect as a possible option for depth in the big league rotation.</p><p>With last week&#8217;s setback, King is now behind the eight ball.</p><p>&#8220;You&#8217;re talking Domingo German, (Jonathan) Loaisiga, Chance Adams, Michael King, who&#8217;s come on to the scene a lot, and then guys that will emerge along the way that you don&#8217;t necessarily account for,&#8221; Boone said. &#8220;Luis Cessa, who maybe is ticketed for our pen in a lot of ways, is a guy we know is capable of going out and starting as well. We feel like we have a lot of internal options, and a lot of internal options that we feel like, especially in an internal role, are capable of being very good pitchers for us.&#8221;</p><p>If pitchers like German, Loaisiga, Adams and a healthy King don&#8217;t latch on with the big league club out of camp, they are expected to anchor a talented RailRiders rotation. A rotation that first-year manager Jay Bell expects to be the strength of the Yankees Triple-A affiliate this season.</p><p>The quartet of pitchers Boone mentioned join Nestor Cortes and David Hale, who are also in the big league camp, as likely candidates to fill out the RailRiders rotation.</p><p>&#8220;I think one of the things that we&#8217;ve done as an organization, especially over the last five to six years, is that we&#8217;ve really stressed pitching,&#8221; Bell told the Times Leader last month. &#8220;It&#8217;s not going to be unlike what we&#8217;ve done in the recent past. We will stress pitching, starting pitching is something that we will really focus on.</p><p>&#8220;I expect all of my players to get to the big leagues. I&#8217;ll put them in as many potential situations that I can put them in so they have success in all areas.&#8221;</p><p><strong>Talent overload in Moosic?</strong></p><p>Unlike a season ago, there aren&#8217;t many starting jobs open on the Yankees&#8217; roster this spring.</p><p>First base is down to 2018 RailRiders Luke Voit, who has a leg up on the job, and Greg Bird, while Gleyber Torres is expected to slot in at second base, followed by Troy Tulowitzki at short and Miguel Andujar at third.</p><p>Some sort of combination of Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Hicks, Brett Gardner and Clint Frazier should carve out spots in the outfield.</p><p>The starting rotation is locked in: Luis Severino, who&#8217;s expected to start opening day, Masahiro Tanaka, James Paxton, J.A. Happ and CC Sabathia. The bullpen is arguably the best in baseball, led by Aroldis Chapman, Zack Britton, Dellin Betances, Adam Ottavino and Tommy Kahnle.</p><p>Boone was blunt on Wednesday. Some players are going to be left out.</p><p>&#8220;I think in every season, even in the best of seasons &#8212; I don&#8217;t know exactly what the numbers are, but you&#8217;re going to need 30, 35, 40, up to 50 guys that make serious contributions to a club,&#8221; Boone said. &#8220;We feel like we&#8217;re in pretty good position to have guys that are able to come in and step up. But hopefully if things play out from a health standpoint in spring training, they&#8217;ll be very few decisions that we need to make from a starting standpoint &#8212; at least initially.&#8221;</p><p>While the RailRiders&#8217; opening day lineup will likely look much different April 4 in Buffalo than it was a year ago, it should still be full of talent.</p><p>First baseman Mike Ford, third baseman Giovanny Urshela and outfielder Billy Burns all received big-league invites this spring. And while outfielder Zack Zehner and first baseman Ryan McBroom did not, they&#8217;re coming off of their best seasons in pro ball.</p><p>And like the Yankees, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre bullpen should be a bright spot as well &#8212; featuring 40-man pitchers Joe Harvey, Stephen Tarpley and big-league invitees Cale Coshow, Phillip Diehl, Raynel Espinal, Danny Farquhar and Brady Lail.</p><p>&#8220;I feel like the depth that we&#8217;ve created within our team &#8212; I feel like if we&#8217;re healthy, we&#8217;ll probably have some really good options and really good players sitting in Triple-A ready to have major contributions at some point during the year,&#8221; Boone said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders starting pitcher Mike King felt some elbow discomfort after a bullpen session last week that will sideline him for at least the next three weeks. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/web1_Mike-King.jpg</photo0><caption0>Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders starting pitcher Mike King felt some elbow discomfort after a bullpen session last week that will sideline him for at least the next three weeks. </caption0><photoCredit0>Todd Hiller file photo | Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By DJ Eberle</p><p>djeberle@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach DJ Eberle at 570-991-6398 or on Twitter @ByDJEberle</p></shirttailMeta></div>

RailRiders’ Michael King sidelined with elbow discomfort