Then the game started...
O for four, three strikeouts. Batting
Well, seriously now: What should we have expected? The guy hasn't played since the first week of spring training. To him, it's not May, it's March.
As Hicksy arrived, our earnest and ever-hustling 3B project, Miguel Andujar, said farewell. As you know, Miggy tried playing with a slightly torn shoulder, but a 3-for-34 opening - plus the drean balloon known as Gio Urshela - convinced the Yankees to pull the plug. Andujar goes into surgery Monday, and the next time we see him will be spring training of 2020, and if the Yankees have failed again, and Boston drops another neutron bomb on us, well, Miggy might not recognize the roster.
For the Yankees, this is a now-or-never year. The front office spent the winter boosting public expectations, while ignoring big name free agents who were practically sleeping on our doorstep. If we don't win this year, the brass will be hard-pressed to generate hope for 2020. Already, New York looks to be transitioning to a Met town. The Mets could be a post-season team. If the Yankees fail to make it, well, imagine Emilia Clarke on a fire-breathing dragon, laying waste to Kings Landing, and that might sum our hopes.
Soon, (geologically, anyway) the Death Star will welcome back Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge and Didi Gregorius. (It's amazing to think that Didi might actually reappear before the others, but the big men - especially Stanton - are proving to be china dolls. Either way, in each case, these all-star guys won't want to play two weeks in the bus terminals of Tampa, Trenton and Scranton. They'll want to come directly to Gotham and resume their regular roles - batting second, third, fourth. A fair question looms: In a tight race - and this is going to be just that - how many 2-for-30s should we endure because these stars are too pretty to play a full rehab in the sticks?
Hicks, in particular, made a surprisingly brief trip through the minors. He played three games for the Tampa
Andujar played three games for Tampa, went 3-for-10. From there, he went to NY, where he looked over-matched and out of cigarettes. Listen: I get it that the Yankees had a reason to rush him back: They wanted to know if his shoulder would hold, and if not, he needed to see the surgeon soon. Still, I wonder if we saw the real Andujar in this recent stretch. Was it the bad shoulder, or just rust from missing so many games and hurrying back too soon? We don't know. We never will.
So now, there isn't much managing for Aaron Boone. Hicksy is back, and Hicksy must play. If he goes 3-for-34, so be it. He'll play himself back into mid-season form, no matter how long it takes. (Unless he pulls something, because Hicksy has a history of doing just that, whenever he gets hot.) But when the full gang returns, the Yankees should demand full minor league rehab, more than three to five games sprinkled between leagues. And when they come back, they should bat seventh or eighth, at least until barrel a few balls.
It's going to be a close race, folks. Boston is coming, hard and fast, and the difference between winning the AL East... and winning the chance to play a one-game season... is huge. We can't afford a month of June or July with the heart of our batting order still slogging through March.
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12 comments:
A thought.
Remember how Giambi broke down as he weaned off the PEDs? Stanton? I hate to even think it, but Judge? Was there a reason Hicks suddenly had a career year last season?
Alternative thought.
Remember back in the old days, weight lifting was considered a no-no for ballplayers? Did it only seem like guys didn't have so many injuries? Or were they just more likely to play through them and have a bad year?
Aside thought.
Remember before pitchers routinely threw 95-100 mph? Did the crash and burns... known today as TJ surgery...only seem less frequent? Or were they?
I don't know.
. . . "imagine Emilia Clarke on a fire-breathing dragon"
I apologize. I imagine Ms. Clarke on something else.
And it ain't a throne.
Joe, you dog, you.
But I know exactly what you mean.
The search brought back MANY results, but I'll present you with only the first, from the Internet Anagram Generator, for "Kendrys Morales" - "Dressmaker Only"
Got my issue of "The Wrong Earth," by the way, and am digging it.
Well said.
Again this comes back to training and development. Why rush a kid through rehab games when you are holding a hot hand (Gio) and the kid needs to catch up to MLB pitching (never mind whether he's healthy)?
Given the outrageous injury totals, this seems like a part of the same problem.
Yanks did good leaving Harper and Machado on the table. But they screwed the pooch with Stanton. Yelich was the real gem in the Marlins fire sale but Hal and Cash could not keep their eyes from being mesmerized by the dingers.
More like a scepter, Joe?
See how low our minds drop with an off-day?!!
JM: Bob Grim, Johnny Kucks, Tom Sturdivant, Bullet Bob Turley, Bill Stafford, Rollie Sheldon, Jim Bouton, Al Downing, Bill Burbach, Steve Kline, Rob Gardner, Mike Wallace, Don Gullett, Gil Patterson, Ed Figueroa.
That's just a partial list of all the Yankees I can think of between 1954-1979 who looked terrific early on, but blew out their arms before age 30. I'mm sure there are more.
Some put in 1, or 2, or even 3 or more very good seasons. A couple—Turley, Downing—came back and were even very good after their arms first went—but their careers were still abbreviated.
So yeah, it was happening then. And I suspect that there is something to limiting pitches early on.
Whitey Ford lost two years to the military, and then was used sparingly for years by Stengel. Did that help his longevity? The same was true for a lot of guys who had terrific careers. Warren Spahn lost three years to WW II. So did Bob Feller. Koufax's career was cut short by arthritis, but might have benefited before that from limited use early on.
As for all the position player injuries? Yeah, that's over development and over juicing.
Classic small-sample hysteria masquerading as "analysis." One game! 0 for 4! The sky is falling!
Jim Bouton.
Doug K.
Yeah, Bouton is in there, Doug K.
And all told, that's 15 guys in 25 years. For one team. And that's not even counting the guys I forgot, or the guys who never got as far as the show because they blew it out in the minors.
The evidence seems pretty clear that the sabremetricious are RIGHT about this: young pitchers should be handled with care. Their innings SHOULD probably be limited.
What interest me, too, though, are the "unicorns." The guys like Robin Roberts, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, and others who put in pretty long careers without—it seems—being rested or taking time off in the early going.
What were their secrets? Did they throw DIFFERENT pitches?
The eminent baseball writer Allen Barra has a theory that young pitchers should be told to throw almost all fastballs, so as to not put stress on their arms with breaking stuff. Something which would also mitigate toward them being bullpen guys to start, and then slowly morphing into starters.
In the old days, of course, what did the owners care? Pitchers, like most everyone else, were a dime a dozen.
Today, considering what they cost, you'd think somebody would really look into it.
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