The Yankees are like the boxer who knows he’s ahead on points and he goes out there for the final round saying to everyone, “Come on, give me all you got, I can take it.” And the Yankees can only hope this is a final blast of adversity and bad news with Torres going down for the count.
For the Yankees, it’s not likely that Gleyber Torres would have worn the Pinstripes this season. Brian Cashman has been adamant about that this day one. And if the team needed to recall an infielder, he has said it would be Tyler Wade, who has more experience and is having a great season at Triple-A.
But as of yesterday, the whole discussion is moot as the Yankees announced that Torres will have season-ending Tommy John shoulder surgery and will not return until the Spring of 2018 at the earliest.
The news about Torres comes on the heels of a disastrous road trip out West that saw the Yankees drop six out of seven games against teams they should have easily beaten, the Angels and A’s.
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The odd thing about the injury to Torres and a cause for the Yankees to wonder if his maturity level is really where it should be is that the injury occurred on a head-first slide at home plate. Not second base on a steal, home plate where the catcher is sitting there with twenty pounds of equipment awaiting your arrival.
Typically, head-first slides are discouraged anywhere and anytime by team personnel. But in the heat of the moment when the testosterone is raging, they happen, and the team chalks it up to the players “enthusiasm” for the game.
Be that as it may, Torres’s season is over. But to add some comfort, a story in the New York Times today points out that:
"“Although most players who undergo Tommy John surgery are pitchers, the procedure is occasionally performed on position players, including Washington Nationals catcher Matt Wieters, the retired outfielder Carl Crawford and Kyle Higashioka, a catcher in the Yankees’ organization.”"
To reiterate, the news about Torres has little or nothing to do with the 2017 New York Yankees. It is, however, a bitter reminder that in a long baseball season, there will always be peaks and valleys, although there are some who think the past week has been a bit more than a valley, and can best be described as an abyss.
By now, you know that this writer doesn’t buy into any of it. And without any of the “Yea, rah, sis boom bah” stuff, the Yankees still have what they need to not only pull out of this slump but to right the ship back to a course that sails into the playoffs, if not a Division title.
Yankees: Just how resilient is this “resilient” band of brothers?
The Yankees have been through this many times before on the West Coast. They stink out there. But the team doesn't belong in the ICU. Hardly.
The team is poised to battle the Red Sox tooth and nail the rest of the way. And it’s not rationalizing to say that the slim 3.5 lead they held a week ago was anything to write home about anyway.
The news about Torres is not what the Yankees and their fans need to hear, and the timing of the injury adds gasoline to the fire. Concern yes, but worry not. The Yankees are far from needing to cry wolf.