After experiencing discomfort in his back, New York Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez becomes the latest ‘Bronx Bomber’ to go down.
Have you ever watched the cult classic Harrold Ramis film ‘Groundhog Day’ starring Bill Murray? Well, much like the movie, the New York Yankees continue to inexplicably live the same day over and over again.
Picking up right where they left off in 2019 when the Yankees sent 30 different players to the injured list, an MLB record, the team has lost it’s sixth player before the 2020 MLB season even begins.
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First, we got wind of the team’s starting center fielder Aaron Hicks opting to have Tommy John surgery right after the 2019 postseason. That takes him out for about half of the 2020 season.
Then, we learned that the team’s number two starter James Paxton underwent a “microscopic lumbar discectomy with removal of a peridiscal cyst” and would be out at least until May.
Next, we find out the number three starter in the rotation, Luis Severino, who just about missed all of 2019, would also miss all of 2020 and maybe even half of 2021 after undergoing Tommy John Surgery.
For most teams, this is bad enough. Not for the New York Yankees, who also managed to lose Giancarlo Stanton to an injured right calf. For the most part, Stanton has been ruled out for Opening Day and hopes to return sometime in April.
And then there’s Aaron Judge, who took the world by storm by winning the American League Rookie of the Year award and breaking the single-season home run record for a rookie in 2017.
This was finally supposed to be the season Judge turned in a complete year, right?
False! Judge will certainly miss the team’s first few games, and perhaps even Yankees opening day after it turns out he suffered a stress fracture of his first right rib.
Now, there’s Gary Sanchez, who experienced tightness in his back late last week. It’s looking like Sanchez could be out at least until Friday, if not longer, becoming the team’s sixth (and counting) injury.
What’s more, Sanchez has tested positive for the flu. The team says it’s not COVID-19, but who really knows? With the world on the cusp of a pandemic, we can’t rule anything out, and what better team than the Yanks to be the first to contract the virus.
I mean, they’ve literally fallen off the bad luck tree, hitting every single worst-case scenario branch along the way down.
If Sanchez ends up missing more time than what is expected, the New York Yankees might regret deciding not to sign Austin Romine to an extension.
Instead, the team is deciding to go with Kyle Higashioka as their backup, but do we have faith in him producing at the same level as Romine did offensively?
At this point, with professional sports leagues considering playing games without any fans in the stands, the Yankees seem to be considering if they should play games without any players on the team.