Bronx, NY: With New York Yankees’ smack down of the BoSox over the weekend, you might expect a little gloating from me. Well, you’ve come to the right place. The dozens of Yankees dropping like flies to injury has tempered my excitement some, but it won’t stop the gloat. And like flies, no matter how many go down, there always seems to be a few more buzzing around. A load of unheralded replacements have stepped in and played well, but there is a lot of season left. We’ll see if they can keep the team afloat with two thirds of the regulars on the shelf for the second time this season.
After Aaron Hicks and Edwin Encarnacion got hurt on Saturday, Gio Urshela and Gleyber Torres went down on Sunday night. Torres was able to go on Monday, but the 6-9 hitters were Mike Ford, Mike Tauchman, Austin Romine, and Breyvic Valera.
That’s not exactly the murderers’ row from opening day or even a few weeks ago, but that’s how it goes. “You just can’t predict baseball,” as an annoying Yankees radio announcer might put it. Heck, even Michael Kay is out injured.
Speaking of injured Yankees, was that a Giancarlo Stanton sighting in the dugout on Sunday night? I didn’t know he was coming to games. I thought he just hung out in a boat made out of gold with hundred dollar bill sails on a lake somewhere with Jed Lowrie, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Yoenis Cespedes. They could sure use him about now. What the hell is wrong with him again?
But this Next Man Up theme is rolling and all these guys were basically free. The Yankees got Urshela from the Blue Jays for the money Brian Cashman had in his pocket that day and some beanstalk beans; they got Tauchman for a guy name Phil Diehl who is pitching for the Albuquerque Isotopes or the Hartford Yard Goats, I’m not sure which but those are real teams and not from The Simpson’s; and Mike Ford was an undrafted free agent. Urshula had a key blast in the last game of the Red Sox sweep and Ford and Tauchman (twice) both went deep on Monday against the Orioles. All season, guys on the back end of the 40-man roster have been coming up big.
But could the Cash-man and the Yankees be victims of their own success? The Yankees surprisingly sat on their hands as trade deadline passed. Cash said teams were asking for the Yankees’ top prospects, Cashman’s first born son, the kitchen sink, and a semen sample from Aaron Judge in any deal for a starting pitcher.
With Cashman’s past success and reputation for deadline wizardry, other teams may have wanted more from the Yankees than from other teams. It seems to me that the Yankees surely could have beaten the Mets offer of two mediocre pitching prospects for Marcus Stroman, but the Jays supposedly held out for the Yankees’ top prospect and potential ace Deivi Garcia. Surely there was some room in between a top prospect and the two stiffs the Mets gave up.
With all these injuries, you’d think we would have seen what’s left of the glowing mane of the Red Thunder, Clint Frazier in the Bronx by now. But apparently, the childish antics he displayed after being sent down to AAA put him in the doghouse. Well, that and his horrendous defense. Still, the Yankees could sure use his bat about now. It’s the AL, there is a damn DH.
Some of us made a lot of jokes when Mets’ players were piling up on the DL last season, like cop cars trying to catch the Blues Brothers. Maybe this is our karmic comeuppance. Maybe you just can’t predict baseball.
That’s it for me. Come back tomorrow for Angry Ward, a man who owns a yard goat, but has never been to Hartford. Follow us on Twitter at @BenWhit8, @MeetTheMatts, @Matt_McCarthy00, Instagram @MeetTheMatts and like our Facebook page, Meet The Matts.
