New York Yankees Baseball: Week 11 (Nobody Panic)
Last Week: (June 5-11) 5-1 New York tore through the AL East’s best on their way to one of the franchise’s best offensive stretches in history (55 runs in 5 games). Everyone was mashing and you’d think it would translate to the west coast as the Yanks packed their bags for Anaheim and Oakland.
As the Bronx Bombers headed west to battle the lowly Angels and A’s, another fantastic week was surely expected. What unfolded was just about the exact opposite. No lead was safe from the pen blowing, injuries piled up left and right, and hours of sleep were lost trying to stay up for a few wins. If you’re looking for a guy to spinzone the fuck out of the worst week of the year then don’t read below. The best part of the week came Monday when Judge won us the game single handily. Click that link if you want to relive that because talking about Monday wouldn’t be fair to the current six game losing streak that is front of our faces. If you’re looking for someone who isn’t hitting the panic button yet, but is mildly concerned from what he saw this past week then let’s dive in.
Battle Wounds
Losing is bad enough, but losing men in the battle is worst case scenario in the month of June. The first casualty of the week was C.C. Sabathia. On Tuesday, in the fourth inning of a scoreless ball game a grounder was hit to Didi Gregorious. The sure-handed short stop gobbled it up and delivered a strike to Chris Carter. When I say a strike, I mean the ball was put on the money to exactly where Carter’s glove resided. The simple task of closing his mitt in time to make the putout appeared too difficult for the largely criticized first baseman to do. The result? A horrible error that extended the inning and put Andrelton Simmons on second base. During the following at bat, C.C. appeared to take an awkward step on the mound and pulled up lame. You could tell he was grabbing at something and that’s never good for an aging vet like Sabathia himself. The aftermath resulted in a grade 2 hamstring pull and a trip to the DL. A 36 year old pulling his hammy tends to mean at least a month and maybe some more, in terms of recovery time. For a guy who was pitching just about as well as you can over the last month or so, it’s a devastating blow to not only him, but the whole team.
On Thursday the injury bug continued to pile on. Aaron Hicks, one of our best players this season, injured his achillies on Thursday when he ran into the center field wall. He would go on to sit the next three games in Oakland while Mason Williams was called up to take over. It was encouraging to hear all weekend that Hicks was improving and at the ball park each and every day. An achillies injury is a dangerous injury to throw around any athlete, and when super serious it could mean the worst of all outcomes. Luckily, it appears Hicks avoided that and could be in the lineup Tuesday night against the Angels at home.
One of the hottest hitters in all of baseball, Gary Sanchez, decided it was a swell idea to steal second base in the 9th inning Thursday. He came up lame himself, grabbing at his groin, to the dismay of Yankee fans everywhere who stayed up for the brutally late game. Hey Gary! Hubbs here! How about we don’t try and steal bases and just stick to mashing pitchers and throwing out runners? Cool? Luckily, Sanchez felt good enough to pinch hit Saturday and even start on Sunday. Now let’s all take a huge exhale of relief that we avoided DL stints (at the moment) for both Hicks and El Gary. Is everyone ready for the really bad news? Go get yourself a strong drink. Maybe make it a double folks…
A hyper-extended left elbow while sliding into home plate head-first has set back our youngest and most talented son. Thank God X-Rays were negative
This injury could not come at a worse time, not because we need him in the major this second, but because he was locked in currently at AAA Scanton. Over hist last 12 games Torres was 19 for 47 (.404) and seemed to be on an ideal path to the majors come July. Now Torres will see a team physician in Scranton on Monday to further examine the elbow and see how much time he’ll miss. Cashman said this week (before the injury) that Tyler Wade would be the call-up if New York needed an infielder in the coming weeks. Wade himself is hitting .437 over the last two weeks so it’s not the worst idea in the world.
Does anyone’s head hurt yet? I think I’ve developed a Jacoby Ellsbury migraine writing this blog.
The Starting Pitching Failed Us
Pineda was terrible, Montgomery was ineffective, Severino was bad, Tanaka was poor, and Cessa was shitty. There! I used a different word to sum up this week’s starting pitching performance. Want numbers? From Wednesday to Sunday those starters combined ERA’s was 7.71 over 25.2 IP. That’s just unacceptable when facing lineups like the A’s and Angels (minus Trout). Severino and Montgomery don’t concern me as much as the obvious Tanaka Chronicles and Pineda’s recent struggles. Luis Cessa should simply not be starting baseball games and it’s becoming apparent that Chance Adams needs to be promoted ASAP. The only guy I’d be okay with making starts in place of Sabathia is Chad Green and Girardi has made it clear he wants his arm out of the pen for now (as do I). Throwing out Luis Cessa every fifth day for the next month or so is not going to result in winning baseball.
The concerns over Tanaka are only getting worse, and I’m not sure what else there is to do besides throw him on the 10 day DL for arm soreness and try to get his mind right. When the Oakland A’s, who are last in the AL in home runs, are hitting bomb shots off of you as if the ball is on a tee then that’s a big fucking issue. At least he makes for good Twitter content.
Chase Headley Error of the Week
Of the course the week the Yanks struggle badly, Chase Headley has his most productive output in a long time. He made one (but really two) errors that were both pretty bad. One was coming on a chopper that literally went right under his glove on Monday night, resulting in a run soon after. On Saturday, Headley came in for a pop fly and literally dropped the ball. Came running over from a mile away, on ball that was definitely the catcher’s, and just fucking dropped it. Luckily for him, Khris Davis didn’t run the ball out so he was thrown out easily. But back to his hitting. The struggling Yankee third baseman collected hits in five of the seven games this week, including three multi-hit performances. To be honest, with Gleyber out now for who knows how long, this is Chase Headley’s window to right his own ship.
Chris Carter Heating Up, Maybe, But How Many Strikeouts Did We Get This Week?
14 in 25 at bats, including a golden sombrero on Saturday! However, Carter did hit two monster shots over the weekend that either tied the game and put New York in the lead so this was certainly a week you could live with the strikeouts. I mean look how far this ball went with a simple flick of the wrist.
Now, he did directly cause C.C. Sabathia’s injury so that won’t help his case towards anyone hoping he gets DFA’d in the next five minutes. I think we have to refer to Chris Carter as Lenny from Mice of Men for now on. They’re basically the same person.
Seriously, Where is Tyler Austin?
With Greg Bird seeing a foot specialist this week, as they try and figure out why he sucks at baseball, Tyler Austin needs to be called up. In 21 games in AAA Scranton the dude is hitting .304. I mean what are we doing not having this guy up in the majors? It rattles my brain that this continues to happen.
Smoke Clubhouse Reporter That’s Hotter Than Meredith Marakovits Of The Week
Meet Alex Curry, the Angels gorgeous clubhouse reporter
Looking Ahead
We’ve got three weeks until the All Star Break and the Yanks and Sox are deadlocked atop the AL East, with New York only ahead by two percentage points. This week hurt there’s no doubting that, but for the most part New York got super lucky on injuries and still remained atop the division. All things aside, you can’t be mad at those two outcomes, considering how bad it could’ve been. Now they fly home (as fast as humanly possible) to get some home cookin’ in with the Angels and Rangers. I wouldn’t be upset if we throw at Eric Young Jr. once or twice to set the tone. I’m done with that fucking guy taking over a whole series in the year 2017.
Follow me on Twitter: @ehubbs13