Yankees Editorial: Why Next Week Is Very Important For The Yankees Season

The AL East is wide open. You could make a case why every team could win it and make the playoffs. You could also make the case as to why every team could finish last this season. The New York Yankees not only have questions regarding their offense, but their rotation has them as well. This upcoming week may be very important for their season.

CC Sabathia will be making his spring debut on Tuesday, after throwing a simulated game this week and Masahiro Tanaka will be throwing again on Wednesday.

The Yankees already lost Chris Capuano this week to injury, which opens a spot in the rotation for either Adam Warren, Esmil Rogers, Bryan Mitchell or Scott Baker. CC’s knee and Tanaka’s elbow could blow at any time. With Ivan Nova on the way back, but not until June, if anything happens to CC and Tanaka, it opens more spots for those guys to step in.

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If the Yankees are going to compete and make it back to the post-season, they need a healthy Tanaka and CC all year long. They need CC to figure out how to pitch without his 95 MPH stuff, which I think he can, though will his knee allow it?

Every time Tanaka goes on the mound you kind of hold your breath. You kind of wait for his elbow to snap. He looked very good in his debut and had excellent downward movement on his pitches, which is exactly what you want to see out of him.

The Yankees didn’t add a Max Scherzer, or Jon Lester, or anyone like that to the rotation. They kept Capuano and added Baker on a minor league deal. In case of injury, the Yankees are going to need pitchers to step up.

The Yankees have to hope CC and Tanaka won’t go down and next week is the first step to that.

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