New York Yankees: 3 Yankees who can’t afford to get hurt

In a shortened season, the Yankees can’t afford to lose these players to their list of growing injuries.

Even in a shortened 60-game 2020 season, the New York Yankees can’t catch a break in terms of injuries. For the second straight year, it’s not only happening at the margins; the Yanks are dealing with injuries to players they can’t afford to lose.

Tell me if you have heard this before: Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge are injured and are on the IL. While the news in recent days has been encouraging in terms of Judge returning, Stanton is still some time away from being back in the lineup.

Saturday night, the Yankees were dealt another blow, this one to the valuable DJ LeMahieu, who sprained his thumb on a swing in the fifth inning of an 11-5 rout of the Boston Red Sox. With LeMahieu expected to be out two to three weeks, the Yankees are testing their depth in a season where they don’t want to.

Then Wednesday night, two days after closer Aroldis Chapman made his season debut, Zack Britton was hurt in the eighth inning of a Yankees 4-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays with a left hamstring strain. Finally, on Thursday ,Gleyber Torres came out of the game in the third inning after getting injured running out a ground ball, and James Paxton entered the MRI tube with an elbow issue. Uncle!!!

With that said, here are three players that the Yankees can not afford to lose to an injury while they wait for Stanton, Judge and LeMahieu and company to return.

Luke Voit

This seems obvious, but right now, with three of the top four Yankees out of the lineup, Luke Voit is the only one who remains with consistent power.

He is tied with Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels with an American League-high 10 home runs, and has driven in 20 runs for the Bombers, attacking a Rays pitching staff this week that no other Yankee could touch.

Moved around in the order by Boone, Voit seems to produce wherever he’s hitting. Torres has started to show some progress in coming out of his slump, while Gary Sanchez has also hit better lately, but neither is supplying the Yankees with much power — and if Torres is going to miss some time, his leap forward has been muted as well. It’s been Voit carrying that load lately.

Voit took a step back in the second half of 2019, hitting just four homers after tearing his core muscles and attempting to play through extreme pain. It was clearly not the real Voit out there, though his downturn in productivity tricked many Yankee fans into believing that Mike Ford would steal the starting job away from him in 2020.

Now? Ford’s wonderful, but the Yankees cannot afford to lose Voit, or even let him play through pain.

If the Yankees are to stay within striking distance of the Tampa Bay Rays in the division until Judge and Stanton can return, Voit needs to remain healthy and keep supplying the Yankees with power. It’s not coming from anywhere else right now.

Gio Urshela

Urshela is quickly becoming an even more valuable piece of the Yankees than he was when 2019 wrapped — after all, that’s what happens when you prove yourself and do it all over again.

Starting the year in the bottom third of the lineup, he has moved up to different spots in the top of the order. He had a two-run home run off of Nathan Eovaldi Saturday night in the No. 4 spot, and continues to be a contact hitter at the top of the order in the absence of LeMahieu and Judge.

His defense has been his calling card since taking over third base last season, but this season, he is contributing more with his bat once again. He has five home runs and 18 RBI in 23 games this season.

Not for nothing, too, but Miguel Andujar has struggled to come back in any capacity in 2020, looking as weak with the bat as he did while battling a pre-surgery shoulder injury in 2019. Some Yankee fans may have feared an Urshela backslide in ’20, but likely assumed that Andujar’s potent bat could make up for the defensive downgrade, in case of emergency.

So far, Andujar’s been non-competitive at the plate, whereas Urshela has looked like a clone of his 2019 self. Without an adequate replacement, and with the middle of the infield now decimated by dings, the Yanks have placed a lot of faith in Gio Dude.

Playing Gold Glove-caliber type of defense at the hot corner, the Yankees need his glove and bat moving forward.