Cashman: Severino 'never should have started' throwing program

New York Yankees right-hander Luis Severino hasn't pitched this season due to lat and shoulder injuries, and he was recently shut down due to another setback.

General manager Brian Cashman said Sunday that Severino may have started throwing earlier than he should have.

"Clearly, in hindsight, he never should have started his throwing program," Cashman said, according to Ken Davidoff of the New York Post. "He passed all his physical testing. He was strong. They made a determination not to do an MRI. And normally they don't do an MRI to follow up after the down period of time. They test him out."

Cashman said on Saturday that Severino's injured lat is at 90 percent and that his next throwing program won't be underway until it's completely healed. While he added that such a development could occur in about a week, the team isn't going to rush it.

"He doesn't like going in the MRI tube. So it's something I know he would have pushed back on. But clearly, if we could've turned the clock back, (we would have) done an MRI maybe three weeks ago now. But it wasn't done," he added. "We can't change that. So we just did one before we left here, after the complaint, and we'll do another one now, and we'll keep doing them until we know he's clear."

Severino went 19-8 with a 3.39 ERA and 10.35 K/9 over 32 starts in 2018.