Injuries? The Yankees got ’em.
Nestor Cortes; Luis Severino; Albert Abreu; Anthony Misiewicz; Wandy Peralta; Tommy Kahnle; Ryan Weber; Luis Gil; Lou Trivino.
And Frankie Montas, and Keynan Middleton just made it back before the end of the season.
And Ian Hamilton by the middle of September.
No surprise then that the patched up Yankees rotation and bullpen struggled in September and in game 162 in October.
Thank goodness for Gerrit Cole.
Let’s take an overview of the stats…
Continue readingSo, my month at the Stadium is over.
What can I tell you? It didn’t work out quite the way I had anticipated it when I accepted the commission at the beginning of the season.
Then the Yankees looked like one of the strongest, if not the strongest team in Major League Baseball. I would have ranked them alongside the Atlanta Braves as the strongest team in the majors
Continue readingAnd there was rain… New York rain.
Yesterday, there was no game. Today, a 51 minute delay, but there was a game.
For 3 hours and 2 minutes we sat out in the rain. Before the game, at least we were able to have friendly conversation with Ed Alstrom, the Yankees organist of the day. That chat and the free food in the Stadium suites was more enjoyable than sitting in the rain and watching this game.
Continue reading(Having been commissioned to be at Yankee Stadium for the home games during September, I kept a diary to submit to my publishers. I am now able to present some of my writings on the games here).
Before tonight’s game, the Yankees, who had been told in no uncertain terms in August by General Manager Brian Cashman that their season was a disaster, then had one of their best runs of the season winning 8 of their previous 10 games. Indeed, one of the two they had lost was due to a walkoff. They were pretty much in contention for every game.
So, we are thinking about the Yankees’ performance in August, and obviously based on their record during the month (10 wins – 18 losses), you wouldn’t expect an upswing in the quality of their pitching performances but in reality there were some positive signs.
Indeed, in the bullpen there were as many significant improvements as there were players who made a significant decline.
Let’s see who the strong performers were, and those who buckled under the strain:
So, continuing on with this theme of the Yankees appalling collapse in July – It is not appalling because the Yankees have a divine right to success. It’s is appalling because the Yankees’ roster is not the roster of the Kansas City Royals, or the Oakland Athletics. It is appalling because going into the season, it appeared that the Yankees had a roster which was the envy of everyone, and had a starting rotation which looked like one of the best, if not the best in the Majors.
Gerrit Cole – Carlos Rodon – Nestor Cortes – Luis Severino – Frankie Montas — and if injuries arose Domingo German and Clarke Schmidt to fall back on.
Injuries came – and too many. Even then the bullpen held up the weight, but by July the relievers were over-tired, and with Aaron Judge injured the team was going nowhere but down.
As we have seen in the analysis of the batters’ statistics the Yankees really over-depended on the pitchers in June, and in particular their bullpen.
Obviously, this cannot continue. In a peculiar way, the steady drip, drip, drip, of pitchers returning from injury means that fresh arms are being made available. Some have been out all season (Tommy Kahnle), others for a shorter time (Ian Hamilton). And the return of Carlos Rodon is not too far away.
It seems likely that before the trading deadline, the Yankees will need to bring new offensive and pitching stars. Let’s hope they are able to do so without giving too much away.
Potentially, from the injured list we gave you at the head of our last article, you could put together four-fifths of a starting rotation, and four relievers to add to your bullpen.
The injuries included Carlos Rodon, who was intended to be the number two starter in 2023, Luis Severino a potential number four starter, and Frankie Montas who was originally brought in from Oakland to be a number 5 starter.
Leading bullpen pieces who were missing in action included Tommy Kahnle, and Jonathan Loaisiga.
There was no question that these were going to be devastating for the Yankees’ early season chances of success.
Here we go… Harrison Bader, Lou Trivino, Tommy Kahnle, Carlos Rodon, Luis Gil, Frankie Montas, Scott Effross, Luis Severino, Ben Rortvedt, Jonathan Loaisiga, Giancarlo Stanton, and Josh Donaldson.
This is the shortlist of players that the Yankees had to place on the injured list through March and April in 2023. It is fair to say it left them with a much weakened team.
That they managed to come through to the end of April with a record of 15-14 was no mean achievement. But a 3 game losing streak against the Texas Rangers at the close of the month meant that they were 4th in the division table, albeit that the American League East is by the far the strongest of the divisions.
twilightdawning 