Recurring injuries plus an unreliable rotation threaten the New York Yankees status in 2020
The New York Yankees may not realize it yet, but they’re in trouble.
It’s only beginning to show up in the standings. The Tampa Bay Rays finished a three-game sweep of the Yankees Thursday at Yankee Stadium, in the process overtaking them for first place in the AL East. The Rays are now 17-9, one-half game better than New York’s 16-9.
Falling a half game behind the Rays in mid-August is not the problem itself; theoretically, that margin obviously can easily be made up over the next five weeks.
The problem is that in the process of sweeping the Yankees, the Rays exposed all the latent flaws that Yankee fans have been willing to overlook as long as their club was in first place…which it had been until Thursday.
Collectively those flaws, notably a suspect rotation and a heart of the order that has the fragility of fine china, are beginning to coalesce to undermine New York’s pennant push.
Begin with the rotation. Gerrit Cole is almost everything Yanks officials hoped he would be when they signed him to that mega deal over the winter. On Thursday Cole held the Rays to just two runs through six and two-thirds innings of what was a 2-2 tie when he left. The Rays scored twice against the New York bullpen in the eighth to win.
Cole is 4-0 through his first six starts with a 2.75 ERA. He has averaged six innings per start.
But Cole is only one fifth of a Yankee rotation which, behind him is proving to be very suspect, a possibility Yankee fans are only now coming to consider.
Masahiro Tanaka, expected to be a solid No. 2 behind Cole, is winless in four starts with a 4.60 ERA. J.A. Happ, a career journeyman who turned two good seasons into a $51 million deal, has a 6.39 ERA in his three starts.
James Paxton is off to the worst start of his career, with a 7.04 ERA through his four starts. Paxton is averaging fewer than four innings per start and has a suis generis 1.63 WHIP.
The default fifth starter, Jordan Montgomery, has been the closest thing to a reliable backup to Cole. He’s 2-1 in four starts. But even that has been dependent on New York’s offense. Montgomery has a so-so 4.64 ERA and, like Paxton, is averaging fewer than five innings per start.
Short outings can be tolerated if a team has a good bullpen, something the Yankees – with Aroldis Chapman, Zack Britton, Adam Ottavino, Chad Green, and Tommy Kahnle – were supposed to have covered in spades.
But Kahnle is injured, Chapman has only just returned to the team following a coronavirus concern, and Britton’s performance is proving as unpredictable as relievers often are. He’s made 10 appearances to date, giving up hits in only four of them and runs in only two. But those two runs both cost the Yankees games…including Wednesday’s 4-2 defeat at the hand of the Rays.
That’s the problem with short-inning starters; it throws too much responsibility on a succession of relievers, each of whom – if the game is tight – must be perfect. If only one of them has a bad inning, the whole proposition can blow up in a manager’s face.
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The last three Yankee games that were tied into the seventh inning all resulted in New York defeats.
Normally, Yankee Plan A for overcoming pitching problems involves bashing the ball repeatedly and for great distances until the pitching concerns recede into the game’s twilight. Lately, however, that plan has run up against the team’s other recurrent hurdle, injuries.
Sluggers Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, both of whom fought ongoing injury issues last year, are both now occupying a spot on the 10-day IL. Judge went there with a calf strain, Stanton with a hamstring strain. Judge may be able to return this weekend, but Stanton’s injury is expected to sideline him at east into September.
The Yankees have also lost infielder D.J. LeMahieu, who led the league with a .411 average when he was forced to the sideline with a thumb sprain a few days ago. Like Stanton, he is expected to be out into September.
On Thursday the Yankees also sat down Gleyber Torres with hamstring tightness, although his evaluation is still pending. It was not immediately clear whether he would be lost for any appreciable length of time.
That left the Yankees at least temporarily competing with a lineup studded with backups: Thairo Estrada, Clint Frazier, and Tyler Wade.
With respect to a post-season berth, the Yankees remain in a good position, particularly given the decision to lard up that post-season with eight teams from each league. At 16-9, they are the current fourth seed, giving them – even if by the barest of margins – a claim on home field for the opening series.
Assuming Stanton, Judge and LeMahieu all return on schedule, assuming they aren’t injured again and further assuming Torres Is not sidelined for a long period, there should be enough time remaining on the schedule for New York to reassemble its offense.
But the rotation, with the concurrent burden it places on the bullpen, may be another matter. As good as Cole is, he can’t pitch more than once every fifth day. And the New York Yankees have yet to establish they have reliable pitching options.
That’s a concern coming down the stretch of the pennant race, and an even larger concern once post-season play begins.