Yankees: Joe Girardi went full Aaron Boone with Bryce Harper injury

Yankees fans are doubtlessly frustrated with the way this franchise continues to treat injury concerns, as well as the ongoing Giancarlo Stanton saga without a beginning, middle or end.

Don’t act like we’re the only ones who do it, though. Turns out our old friend Joe Girardi, currently at the helm of the Phillies, might be just as much of a front office puppet as we believe Aaron Boone is.

Over the past several days, Girardi has alternated sitting Bryce Harper and sending him up to the plate, clearly hobbled, only for late-and-close situations to very obviously find him.

Harper, two for his last 25, just played five straight against the Marlins and Red Sox, putting up an 0-for-9 line Friday and Saturday against Boston while striking out six times before sitting (finally). Perhaps more worrisome, Girardi claimed his star was fully healthy … until, of course, he landed on the IL Tuesday.

Oh, man, who could’ve seen that coming?

Everyone?

Ex-Yankees manager Joe Girardi pulled an Aaron Boone.

It’s a forearm contusion for Harper, which sounds like quite a painful thing to play through day after day as your manager tells the world you’re fine.

What’s more of a “competitive disadvantage”? Your opponent learning about injuries, or you playing a clearly-injured player and batting him in the middle of the order?

Of course, Girardi didn’t go full Boone here. He played Harper. Boone would’ve been instructed to tell the media that nothing was wrong and that the team was just “testing out some things, you know, guy stuff” as his injured player missed 12 straight games.

Replace the names (well, except “Gregorius,” which feels familiar) and tell me this isn’t a screaming Yankee fan. This is happening elsewhere?

Only about a week ago, a pre-surgery Aaron Hicks and a soon-to-be-IL’d Giancarlo Stanton shared the bench in Baltimore while Gio Urshela also sat, battling a knee injury. All three were active, and Urshela later beat the odds to pinch-hit a game-winning homer, but it still seemed like an extremely weird use of resources if not an example of outright lying in the mirror.

Maybe Boone read it in a binder left behind under the Yankees dugout from the guy who previously used to run the ship.

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