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The Yankees will be without CC Sabathia for at least the next couple weeks, as the team is set to place the ace left-hander on the disabled list with inflammation in his left elbow.

News of Sabathia’s injury was first broken Saturday by Daily News beat writer Mark Feinsand, who reported that CC felt continued soreness in his elbow after throwing a side session on Friday.

According to Feinsand, Sabathia experienced some minor stiffness in his elbow last Sunday, two days after pitching a complete game against Seattle. The team sent him for an MRI that revealed “nothing” according to Joe Girardi, so Sabathia made his next start Wednesday in Detroit – but the stiffness returned after that start, and was still present after throwing on Friday.

"It's not any worse than it was after the first start, but our concern is it didn't go away," manager Joe Girardi said. "As far as the concern, it's pretty low-level, because it's not like it got any worse. He wants to pitch on Monday, which I'm not surprised, because he said he's dealt with it before. We just decided, let's try to get it cleaned up now."

Girardi also said that he doesn’t believe the inflammation will keep Sabathia out longer than the requisite 15 days. And, as the move to DL the lefty will be retroactive to Thursday, Sabathia will be eligible to return from the DL on August 24; the skipper hopes to have his ace back that night, but knows that CC’s health is paramount to the Yankees’ chances of going deep in the postseason.

"We're going to deal with it; that's the bottom line," Joe Girardi said. "We don't want to, but we need to have him healthy. If we're going to continue to move on, we're going to need to have him healthy."

Sabathia was scheduled to pitch Monday in the Yankees’ series opener against Texas at Yankee Stadium. A replacement has not been named as of yet, although the Yankees could summon Adam Warren – who made one start earlier this year and is scheduled to pitch Sunday for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre – to make the start.

No further tests are planned on Sabathia's arm, but he's scheduled to see a team doctor Monday when the team returns to New York and Girardi said cortisone could be an option.

"The treatment that he's had over this time, it's responded okay," Girardi said. "But the fact that it came back concerned us."

Sabathia, who is 12-3 with a 3.56 ERA this season, was on the disabled list from June 25-July 17 because of a strained groin, but this is the first time in his career that he has ever missed time with any type of arm injury.