Things aren’t as bad as they were last April, when it looked very much like Joe Torre would get fired one month into the season, but the Yankees are plagued with injuries right now that are making things worse than they should have been:
The bad news keeps coming for the Yankees. Alex Rodriguez has been placed on the disabled list. He has a Grade 2 quadriceps strain.
“We have to get him right,” GM Brian Cashman said.
So much for the sunny prediction before the game that Rodriguez would be out only a day or two. It appears at first glance that the Yankees made a mistake in bringing him back as quickly as they did.
Rodriguez played a role in that decision, so he bears some responsibility. But the Yankees are 1 for 3 with key injuries so far this season. Derek Jeter was held out six games with his quad strain and appears OK. But Jorge Posada came back too soon, as did A-Rod. They both aggravated their injuries and ended up on the disabled list. That falls on Cashman and Joe Girardi, who have the final say.
A-Rod and Posada on the disabled list, and Jeter not 100%, not a good combination.
And, to make things worse, at least one of those hot young pitchers isn’t very hot right now:
Manager Joe Girardi never looks good after a loss, but he looked weary after Phil Hughes imploded and the Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 6-4, on Tuesday night. Hughes was pounded for six runs and eight hits in three and two thirds innings.
When Girardi was asked about Hughes’s future in the rotation, he tried to deflect the questions by saying the Yankees would make those types of decisions as an organization. But, after the third or fourth time Girardi was asked about Hughes, he gave, perhaps, his most revealing answer.
“Right now, he’s one of our starters,” Girardi said. “We will talk about it as a club.”
If I were Hughes, the words “right now,” wouldn’t make me feel comfortable right now. Hughes is 0-4 with a 9.00 earned run average in his first six starts, brutal statistics. Girardi lamented how Hughes was not precise with his pitches.
And it’s thanks to this combination of ills, that the Yankees are 14-14 as of today. Not as bad as this point last season, when they had lost 14 of their last 23 games, but not the stellar start many were expecting either.
