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Yankees: Just how resilient is this “resilient” band of brothers?

By Steve Contursi

Aroldis Chapman David Banks-USA TODAY Sports
Aroldis Chapman David Banks-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Yankees, it could be said, have been living in a dream world for the first sixty games of the 2017 season. Everything has gone right for them. Even past injuries couldn’t take them down. Now, the team is in the midst of their first real test. Described as resilient many times, we’ll see just how resilient they are.

The Yankees, only a month ago, had just suffered a case of severe whiplash when the Houston Astros gave them a good whipping and a solid wake-up call at Yankee Stadium. And for the first time, there were questions being asked about how good this team really was and if they’d be able to bounce back.

The Yankees did bounce back, and that’s why they are still in first place, albeit with a slim one-game lead over the Red Sox. As reported in the New York Daily News, Joe Girardi had this to say about the weekend sweep by the Astros:

"“It wasn’t how we wanted this series to go, but to me we had a chance in three of the four games,” Girardi said. “We just didn’t get the big hit when we needed it. It’s not what you want, but we’ve been playing pretty well and we’ve had some shots. If we keep getting those shots, we’re going to be all right.”"

The key words being, “we’re gonna be all right.” And as Girardi said about the Astros series, “we had a chance in three of the four games.” Today that has a familiar ring to it as we look back at the Yankees West Coast swing that is beginning to have disaster written all over it.

Tested once, the Yankees take a re-test

Last night, Aaron Judge and Chris Carter gave the Yankees all they should have needed with key home runs and Luis Severino delivered a six-inning start that wasn’t perfect (four runs surrendered) but again should have been manageable for a team leading the league in runs scored.

Ultimately though, the game went into the hands of the bullpen where everything fell apart for the second straight night.

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Of significance, though, is that Dellin Betances was “unavailable” because he had thrown 39 pitches over 1.2 innings the night before. Now, there’s nothing written in stone that says Girardi couldn’t have used Betances in the final inning last night. But Girardi chose instead to make the wise, though cautious decision

And it didn’t help either that, as luck would have it, the Yankees starting center fielder, Mason Williams, “found out at 3 a.m. Friday while on a bus to Buffalo that he had been summoned to the big leagues and was needed that night in Oakland. (Newsday) Williams arrived in the Yankees clubhouse just after 4 P.M. and barely in time for batting practice.

Yankees and that damn West Coast

This is life in the big leagues, where it’s all about resiliency and making adjustments. The incessant travel that requires jumping through time zones becomes commonplace and players, eventually, become numb to it.

For the Yankees, West Coast trips have always been a bane of their inter-division season schedule. And this could be that they only make one trip a year unless interleague play requires another. But otherwise, the team plays games in only three cities, and then they fly home.

Resilience and adjustments. We’ll see in the coming days and weeks just how adaptable to adversity this team of Yankees is.

Because on the other hand, a team like the Lost Angeles Dodgers are faced with stops in St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Miami, and I probably left at least another out. And yet, the Dodgers manage to deal with it.

But for the Yankees, these trips are often the curse of the devil. In 2012, the team went 2-6, and in 2015, they lost three of four to these same A’s. And in 1995, the Bombers went 1-8 on the trip. Although, it was on this West Coast Swing that Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera made their major league debut, and Andy Pettitte made his first start as a Yankee.

This patient doesn’t belong in ICU

To reiterate, the Yankees have been described as resilient many times over the course of this season. They’ve played well without Didi Gregorius and Gary Sanchez in the lineup for extended periods of time. They’ve endured losing their closer, Aroldis Chapman, for more than a month. And they’ve played the better part of their season without the services of Greg Bird.

The Yankees were also blessed with a durable starting staff, although the odds suggested that sooner or later, at least one would go down for a considerable length of time. CC Sabathia turned out to be the one.

And if you want to rationalize a bit, you could say the team’s current troubles couldn’t have come at a better time, in mid-June instead of mid-September.

Brian Cashman always has a plan, and he always has a plan to replace that plan if he needs it. And Joe Girardi knows how to manage the team he is given. Jonathan Holder may not be Girardi’s best in the bullpen when a game is on the line, as it was last night.

But you go with what you have, and you don’t look back. Holder got beat on a pitch he intended to throw in the dirt for a swing and miss. He missed, and the Yankees took their fourth consecutive loss. That’s baseball.

The Yankees don’t belong in the ICU. Chapman is set to be activated this weekend allowing Betances to go back to his eighth inning role, thereby lengthening the bullpen instantaneously. The injuries to Adam Warren and Sanchez will need to be evaluated, and Cashman will make his moves from there.

A rebound against the A’s and Mariners on the trip would be an excellent development. But it’s not a necessity, and the Yankees would do well to split the remaining games, fly home, and let the dust settle before any suggestion of panic sets in.

Resilience and adjustments. We’ll see in the coming days and weeks just how adaptable to adversity this team of Yankees is.

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