NEW YORK (AP) — Anthony Volpe is ready to rejoin the New York Yankees, but the team isn't set for the shortstop's return.
With José Caballero playing well, the Yankees kept Volpe at Double-A Somerset on Friday rather than activate him for a series opener against Baltimore.
Manager Aaron Boone said Volpe will remain at Somerset through Sunday, the maximum 20th day of a minor league injury rehabilitation assignment. After that, the Yankees would have to activate the 2023 Gold Glove winner or option the 25-year-old to the minors.
“We’ll kind of reevaluate where we are on after Sunday,” Boone said before New York beat Baltimore 7-2 for its 11th win in 13 games. “I don’t think it hurts to have some more runway for him. Caby's obviously playing very well for us. So I just want it to be a situation where we’re giving Anthony every chance to come in and be successful, but also taking note of what’s going on with our club, as well.”
If Volpe is optioned to the minors for at least 20 days, it would delay his free-agent eligibility by a year until after the 2029 World Series.
Volpe had left shoulder surgery Oct. 14 and is batting .278 (10 for 36) with one homer and four RBIs in 11 minor league games.
Caballero started at shortstop in 31 of the Yankees’ first 32 games. He had a go-ahead, second-inning homer off Cade Povich that left his bat at 108.5 mph and is hitting 266 with four homers, 12 RBIs and 12 stolen bases. Caballero also made a sliding stop 20 feet past second on the right side to throw out Adley Rutschman starting the fourth inning.
“It complicates it a little bit, clearly,” Boone said before the game. “José’s earned opportunities and been a key part of our club here and a part of success here to start out the season.”
A 29-year-old acquired from Tampa Bay last July 31, Caballero is hitting .333 (23 for 69) with 11 RBIs in his last 19 games.
“He’s taking it from BP a little bit more into the game. I mean, he hits bombs with BP,” Boone said. “We don't think he’s going to be his big home run hitter but, I mean, that’s a shot tonight.”
Caballero is a rare Yankees player who takes batting practice on the field before every game rather than sometimes stay in an indoor cage.
“It makes me feel good going out there and see the ball fly and see how the ball is carrying to all the fields,” he said.
Volpe hit .212 with 19 homers and a career-high 72 RBIs last year and made a career-high 19 errors, tied for third-most among major league shortstops.
Caballero wouldn't say whether he had earned an everyday job.
“I’m not the guy to make that decision,” he responded. “My goal is to help my team and help my team as much as I can to win and do my best every day.”
Caballero is recognizable during games for a double-line streak of eye black that extends to his cheeks. Yankees fans also are starting to notice him for home run trots.
“I do my best to hit for power," he said, “but I know my game and I just want to be on base.”
Carlos Rodón could make his Yankees season debut after one more minor league outing.
He struck out eight over 5 1/3 innings Thursday night in his second minor league rehabilitation appearance, throwing 75 pitches for Somerset. The 33-year-old left-hander is set to start for Triple-A Scranton on Tuesday.
“I feel like he’s about ready,” Boone said. “It’s possible that this next one, and then we could take him or we’ll do one more, potentially.”
Rodón opened the season on the 15-day injured list as he recovered from surgery last Oct. 15 to remove loose bodies in his left elbow and shave a bone spur.
Gerrit Cole will make his fourth minor league start Tuesday for High A Hudson Valley as he returns from reconstructive elbow surgery on March 11.
A scan did not detect a serious injury to Jasson Dominguez, struck on his left elbow by an 89.1 mph cutter from Texas pitcher Nathan Eovaldi on Wednesday.
“We got good news on that front. Kind of holding our breath a little bit yesterday with that, but it came back clean,” Boone said. “He was much improved yesterday, much improved today, so I think we avoided something there.”
Dominquez started all three games in the series against the Rangers after being called up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Monday. He went 1 for 9 (.111) in the series.
Giancarlo Stanton could start hitting this week, but is still not running.
Stanton strained his right calf while running the bases at Houston on April 23 and was put on the 10-day injured list in a stint that started April 25.
Outfielder Randal Grichuk refused an outright assignment to Scranton and elected to become a free agent. Grichuk was designated for assignment Wednesday. He hit .194 (6 for 31) with four doubles and two RBIs in 16 games with the Yankees.
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New York Yankees' José Caballero plays during the ninth inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles Friday, May 1, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
ECONE, Switzerland (AP) — A breakaway group of traditionalist Catholics on Wednesday directly defied Pope Leo XIV by celebrating an ancient Latin Mass to consecrate four bishops without his consent, dismissing the threat of schism and excommunication and justifying their actions as a “sacred duty” to defend the Catholic faith.
Bells tolled through the mountain valley of Econe, Switzerland, as the Society of St. Pius X began the solemn ceremony at its seminary. Thousands of people, faithful Catholics who prefer the traditional Latin Mass over modern liturgies, filled the field under cloudy skies as the incense-led procession of hundreds of priests approached the altar under a tent.
The orderly, solemn ceremony, accompanied by organ music and livestreamed on the society's YouTube channel, went ahead despite a last-ditch appeal by Leo to call it off. In a letter published Tuesday, the American pope warned that consecrating bishops without his approval amounts to a “sin of extreme gravity” that will actually harm their faithful.
And yet at the start of the Mass, a priest read aloud a statement justifying the consecrations as a necessary defense of the faith and criticizing how the Catholic Church today had deviated from tradition.
“Therefore before God we consider it a sacred duty towards Holy Church and towards souls to proceed with the consecration of bishops who are entirely faithful to her holy tradition and to her constant magisterium,” the priest said. “We consider every punishment and censure brought to bear against this step will have no validity.”
According to church law, the mere act of consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate incurs the harshest penalty in the Catholic Church: automatic excommunication for the four new bishops and the bishop administering the rite. It also amounts to a schismatic act, or an intentional rupture of the unity of the Catholic Church.
And yet everything about Wednesday’s ceremony had the air of a joyous celebration. The website for its consecration has had a countdown clock running for days. Video clips show seminarians joyfully unloading boxes. Participants received a baseball cap with the “Econe2026” seal on it.
The field, located under giant power lines, was awash in smiling nuns, priests posing for photos, girl scouts handing out water bottles, black-clad security guards with earpieces and orange-vested volunteer escorts keeping journalists on a short leash. Morning mist coated the nearby Rhone River that snakes through the Alpine valley as worshippers flocked in.
And in perhaps the most obvious sign of a celebration, registered participants were able to purchase a souvenir set of wine to commemorate the “historic” event. The 75 Swiss franc ($92.50) “Cuvee des Sacres” gift box features pinot noir, Syrah, Petit Arvine and Fendant, each bottle with a bishop-themed label: an image of a bishop’s pointed miter hat, his ring, cross or crozier staff.
For the society, known by its acronym SSPX, neither the threat of a declared schism nor an excommunication matters. The SSPX believes it alone is upholding church tradition and the Catholic faith.
“We don’t fear it. It pains us immensely, but we believe that the good we seek is greater than the pain that will be inflicted upon us,” said Marc-André Mabillard, media manager for the society.
In a late response to Leo's letter, the SSPX superior, the Rev. Davide Pagliarani, urged Leo to wait before declaring any penalty.
The ceremony took place 38 years to the day after the Vatican declared the last consecrations of SSPX bishops a “schismatic act” that incurred automatic excommunication for the bishops.
The French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre had founded the ultratraditionalist SSPX in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the 1960s church meetings revolutionized the Catholic Church’s relations with other Christians, Jews and people of other faiths, and allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.
Today, the SSPX celebrates the ancient Latin Mass and has accused the modern church of being rife with heresies and errors, including modernism, liberalism and ecumenism. The society insists that only the SSPX is upholding the true faith of Christ and has justified the consecrations, citing a “state of necessity” to minister to its faithful.
But many Catholics, including conservative and traditional ones, are opposed to the consecrations, viewing them as an act of severe disobedience to the pope that hurts the church.
“You can’t serve tradition while disobeying the church and her authority,” said the Rev. Robert Gahl, an ethics expert at the Catholic University of America.
The St. John Paul II biographer, George Weigel, has written that the SSPX-Vatican divide is about far more than just whether Mass is celebrated in Latin or English.
It’s about “a rejection of the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on the church, salvation, religious freedom, church–state relations, and the church’s relationship to other religions,” Weigel wrote recently in First Things magazine.
Weigel recalled that Lefebvre was a supporter of the “collaborationist" Vichy regime in France during World War II. One of its original SSPX bishops denied the Holocaust.
The SSPX has justified the consecrations by invoking a “state of necessity.” The group says that with only two of the original four bishops surviving, it simply needs more bishops to tend to the needs of a faith community that counts 800 places of worship in 77 countries.
The group denies that the consecration is a rejection of Leo’s authority or a challenge to his power. Rather, it says the creation of four new bishops is solely to be able to ordain new priests and preside over confirmation ceremonies according to the ancient rite.
The SSPX has identified the new bishops as Pascal Schreiber of Switzerland, Michael Goldade of the United States, Michel Poinsinet de Sivry of France and Marc Hanappier, also of France.
In response to the pope’s letter, Mabillard, media manager for the society, expressed “great sadness to not be understood by our leader,” and added: “We are changing absolutely nothing in our plans.”
Winfield contributed from Rome.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Faithful wait for the start of a consecration ceremony for four new bishops, outside a tent set up outside the Society of St. Pius X seminary, in Econe, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Priests prepare miters and pastoral staffs before the start of a consecration ceremony for four new bishops, in a tent set up outside the Society of St. Pius X seminary, in Econe, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
Pope Leo XIV leaves after a Mass where he conferred the pallium on newly appointed metropolitan archbishops, in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV waves during the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Leo XIV leaves after a Mass where he conferred the pallium on newly appointed metropolitan archbishops, in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
