Yet ANOTHER Yankees injuries thread...

[SCFinFan]

My God, this has GOT to stop...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/baseball/mlb/wires/06/03/2010.ap.bba.yankees.moves.0131/

[EDGECRUSHER]

The reserves of the reserves are now getting hurt.

Chien Meng Wang got a save today. Aside from him, the only players left were Villone and Scott Erickson and well....that just leaves Ron Villone and he already pitched in 2 straight games.

The most amazing part is, they have won 9 of 11 and are now in first place. Not just that, but they have the best offense in baseball. This can't last, but it can for a little while longer. I mean, Andy Phillips has hit over .500 the past 2 weeks. He can stay hot for another week or two, but that's it. Thank God Jeter has been extremely clutch this year, unlike last year when he seemed to end about 15 games by himself.

I hope Thompson plays over Long. Long is worse than Womack with his below .500 OPS. Torre talked about his experience with Oakland and their pennants which they never won. I would rather have a guy like Thompson who will do anything to stay in the Majors. Nothing personal against Long, but he's not a Major Leaguer.

[SCFinFan]

I agree with you on the Long/Thompson comparison and desicion. I think I may be more of an optimist than you in other areas though. We were much worse off last year, what with our starting pitching being nearly completely injury-prone, unreliable, and overpaid. Yet we still came back. This year, we're really tearing it up and playing much better than last year, despite yet another rash of injuries.
 
It's my belief that these injuries are, in part, a good thing. They're freeing up space at the top and giving our younger guys chances. Of course, the chances they have they may not capitalize one, but they have so far. I see no reason why that wouldn't continue. These 'kids' (Andy Phillips is a youthful 29), are really hungry as a result of never thinking they'd ever play at the major league level. Now that there's hope they will, they'll do (as you said, Edge) anything to get at that level and prove their worth. Furthermore, I really think it brings this team together. Last year, when we were losing and had a payroll over 200 mil, I was really starting to lose my liking of the Yankees. I'm no fairweather fan, mind you (I started liking them back in the late '80s, when they really sucked.) but it was just so hard to see all these overpaid 'studs' just not get it done.

This year the exact opposite is happening. The studs are injured and the young kids are breaking loose. Just look at Melky Cabrera. Sure, not everyone is going to play as well as he has through his first month of work for us, but damn if that kid isn't the real deal... and at 21 for Christ's sake!

Perhaps I'm just wildly optimistic, but with the exception of Rivera's injury, I think these injuries are bringing the team together and giving it a hardiness and a toughness that it wouldn't have without them (Perserverance builds character, after all). We're playing like a team now, because we have to, rather than just a bunch of 'me-first' show off FAs.

(I realize the preceding text contained many sweeping generalizations, please don't jump on me, Sunstroke.)

[EDGECRUSHER]

Over the course of a 162 game season, I would take Sheffield and Matsui and A-Rod and Giambi over this current group without hesitation. However, October baseball is a different beast. Those who can advance runners over and get sac flies and timely hits are the ones who usually prevail.

This hasn't happened recently because the hitters take too many walks. Now, walks aren't bad, they are certainly better than outs, but eventually someone has to step up and drive those runs in and no one has. That's why you'll see stat lines like 5 hits, 8 walks and 2 runs.

I would rather they play 12 hits a game for 5 or 6 runs rather than the other way. In October, the non-sabermetrics way wins. They need a balance of that and if they get to October, they are gonna get it because both Matsui and Sheffield are essentially done for the year. That leaves Melky and hopefully Thompson does well enough to earn that spot.

[EDGECRUSHER]

Posada played first base today after some injuries. No joke, they are about 2 injuries away from forfeiting a game.

Boston has a chance to gain some ground now on the Yanks because Jeter will probably miss the series and if A-Rod's play today was any indication of what Giambi will be like after getting the flu, Giamhbi will be worthless for the series too.

Damon
Cabrera
A-Rod(flu)
Giambi(flu)
Posada
Cano
Williams
Long
Thompson(good first 2 games)

Not exactly murderer's row, but if they can win one game I think they should be content with that. Beckett goes against Mussina tomorrow and I honestly have no idea how Beckett will do. He usually has about 3-4 good starts in a row and then gets hit hard. That's why his ERA is at around 4.50 and will probably finish the year there despite a record of 18-8 or so.