Yankees bits and pieces, game notes, DL updates, trade rumors

Yankees news of late contains the following tidbits you may not have seen. We’ll begin with an update on injuries:

Yankees first baseman, Greg Bird, made the call several weeks ago that he will be back with the team before season’s end. Most fans and Yankees brass could only lament they wished it could be so. But now, according to a report by MLB Trade Rumors, Bird just might do it and wouldn’t that be a hoot?

"Greg Bird, mending a right ankle that’s kept him out since May 1, could be back sooner than expected. The first baseman is eyeing a return before the end of August from surgery to remove his Os Trigonum, a rare extra bone that grew in the ankle and was bruised when he fouled a pitch off his foot at the end of spring training."

Greg Bird (Photo by Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images) /

Along the same lines, Tyler Austin has joined Aaron Hicks at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, playing in rehab games. The Yankees are especially looking forward to the return of Hicks, hoping his bat will pick up where he left off for a team whose punch has suddenly gone dead. Nevertheless, the team will be cautious because oblique injuries have an eerie way of reoccurring if not fully healed.

Starlin Castro is not expected to rejoin the team anytime soon. River Avenue Blues quotes Joe Girardi as saying, “He is still a ways away. He still hasn’t run”. Which means the Yankees will either continue to juggle between Tyler Wade and Ronald Torreyes or hit the market for a waiver wire for a rental, second baseman.

Girardi’s Subtle Catching Move

Girardi told the press last night that Gary Sanchez was the DH because he felt Sanchez needed an extra day off from catching. I’m not buying it. The reason Austin Romine started last night is that Girardi trusted Romine to immediately get in sync with newcomer Sonny Gray, which he did. Sanchez’s inability to call a game and his penchant for passed balls have reached the point where even civilians like myself can see it. Can’t have that in a pennant race.

Will Judge beat it, or will it beat him

If, as Yogi Berra declared, baseball is 90% mental, then Aaron Judge‘s mental anguish must be at a boiling point. It all looked and was so easy only a few weeks ago, wasn’t it? But now, fastballs down the middle are missed or harmlessly fouled off. And breaking balls off the plate are routinely swung at and missed jettisoning Judge’s strikeout rate up to an alarming 40% during the second half.

More from Yanks Go Yard

Judge had a whole winter to think about the adjustments he needed to make following his dismal showing at the end of 2016. But now, the games come at him one after another, and all he can do is fight to slow the game down.

Seemingly, he has the character to do that, and much like the struggling Matt Holliday, sooner or later they’ll figure it out. There are no “replacements” of equal caliber at this time of the year so that each man will remain a regular in Girardi’s lineup. Until the string is snapped though, the Yankees will remain in a quandary to score runs.

Sale No Big Deal

Both the New York Post and the New York Daily News are making a big deal out of the Red Sox crafting a schedule for the remainder of the year that has Chris Sale facing the Yankees three times.

Whoopey. Who else have they got? Those dates are, in case you want to black mark them on your calendar, Aug. 13, Aug. 19 and Sept 3. No point in the Yankees even showing up for those games, right? It never ceases to amaze me…….

Next: Didi Gregorius has officially made everyone forget

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