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Cody Bellinger of the New York Yankees has not played in two days.

The New York Yankees are expected to contend for World Series championships every year — though they have not won one since 2009. After they fell short again last year, winning 94 games, but falling in the American League Division Series to the eventual AL champion Toronto Blue Jays, it was widely believed that they would aggressively move to upgrade their roster in the offseason.

That did not happen. At least not the way Yankees fans thought it would. And it wasn’t only fans criticizing the team’s front office. The face of the Yankees franchise, three-time MVP Aaron Judge also took his shots, saying at the outset of spring training that his team’s offseason was “pretty tough to watch.”

But the Yankees did make one major move, even if it involved bringing back a star player who was on the team last year and departed for free agency. In late January, the Yankees signed former National League MVP outfielder Cody Bellinger to a five-year, $162.5 million contract.

Now, nine games into the spring training schedule and the Yankees, for what it’s worth, boasting a 7-2 won-loss record, Bellinger has been mysteriously absent from the New York lineup.

When the Yankees took on the Blue Jays Saturday, Bellinger sat out, as he had Friday against the Minnesota Twins. But later on Saturday, the Yankees solved the mystery. Bellinger is injured.

What is Bellinger’s Injury?

At the start of the 2025 season, Bellinger was forced to sit out with a “stiff back,” according to an MLB.com report.

“It’s just a little unaligned,” Bellinger said at that time, as quoted by

MLB.com. “It creates a little bit of tightness. I’ve had it before multiple times. I just know it’s a few days thing.”Less than a year later, the same recurring injury has sidelined the 30-year-old outfielder once again. But manager Aaron Boone told reporters that the injury to Bellinger has not caused him to worry.

“We don’t think it’s anything. The trainers aren’t too concerned about it,” Boone said, as quoted by MLB.com. “This is something that crops up on him every now and then, usually sometime in the spring or earlier in the year. We dealt with it a little bit in-season early last year.”

Boone, entering his ninth season at the Yankees helm, said that he expected Bellinger to remain on the bench for Sunday’s game, and Monday’s as well. But the manager said that Bellinger should return to the Yankees’ spring training lineup on Tuesday, when the Bronx Bombers face Team Panama in a warm-up game ahead of the World Baseball Classic.

Not Everyone is Buying Boone’s Claim

Boone’s downplaying of the Bellinger injury did not go over well in some elements of the Yankees fan and media base.

“Aaron Boone — you’re not going to believe this! — downplayed the injury, saying Bellinger’s ‘back went out on him a little bit,’” wrote Yankees analyst Adam Weinrib of

Yanks Go Yard. “Who wants to take bets on whether he’s in the lineup Tuesday, and whether we have to address this again?”But another commentator, Andres Chavez of Empire Sports Media

, was not concerned. 

“If he’s back Tuesday, great. If it’s Thursday, who cares? The goal isn’t to win the Grapefruit League trophy,” Chavez wrote on Saturday. “The goal is to make sure that when the lights turn on for real in late March, Belli is ready to launch balls into the Short Porch without clutching his lumbar. Let him rest.”