Suddenly, after a wave of injuries, the Yankees don't look so awesome

We knew it was coming. Nobody can claim otherwise. 

All that YES happy talk, all that new start crapola - it would eventually give way to a Suzyn Clubhouse Report - (even without Suzyn) - etching a list of  casualties onto a long, midnight blue wall. 

Yesterday -  Black Thursday in Tampa - brought into focus the reality of 2023: The Yankees are baseball's version of the Norfolk Southern Railway, capable of barreling off the tracks at any moment and befouling the ridiculously  hot, farty air that is unleashed upon their fan base.  

Revealing an almost supernatural inability to land pitching, Brian "Cooperstown" Cashman suffered one of the worst days since - well - since his last round of ill-fated acquisitions. 

Carlos Rodon - the Yankee jewel of last winter's free agency - has a forearm strain that will force him to miss opening day. Collectively, the Yankiverse is now holding its breath, waiting for the sound of shoes dropping. If Rodon is compromised or - worse - misses a vast part of the season, the Death Barge quickly slides from divisional fave to wild card chaser. They now have lost two front line starters - each was expected to deliver 150 innings - with the replacement larder looking increasingly bare. Remember all those young pitchers we traded last August? That was our reserve. They're gone to Oakland and Chicago, and most of the players we received - Lou Trevino, Scott Effross and now Harrison Bader (possible strained oblique, maybe out for weeks) - are on the shelf. Add Tommy Kahnle  - (strained bicep, will miss opening day) - and Cashman's track record on trades is straining the limits of random sequencing. As player after player falls, the GM is becoming a disappointment machine, a human Agatha Christie novel. How can anyone be so consistently wrong? 

Who among us does not feel the cracking of ice beneath our feet? You have to wonder: What will the next three weeks bring? We're already down to hoping for 150 innings from Luis Severino, which is like hoping for Mitch McConnell to toss away his walker and perform a River Dance jig. Both Domingo German and Clarke Schmidt have been injured so often that they threaten the solvency of Obamacare. We have one starter we can count on, and due to the rules of juju, I shall not write his name. 

But this we know: The creaks and tweaks will keep coming.  They always do. 

Other notes from yesterday:

Jasson Dominguez homered again. He now leads the Yankees with three. 

Keep in mind that Kyle Higashioka led the team last March, so the numbers merely represent a confusion of small samples and non-roster meatballs. The Yankees won't keep Dominguez in MLB camp much longer, though if Bader misses a couple months, Cashman will need something to divert attention to the empty spot where a trade acquisition should be. It's rare to find someone so wrong so often, who still has a job.  

Over his career, though, Cashman has shown one great talent: He finds jewels in the scrap pile. Last year, he coaxed a trade with Texas that brought us Jose Trevino - his last deal that didn't abruptly go south. He needs an Aaron Small, a Michael King, a Clay Holmes. He needs a win. And we - damn - we need a respite.