Depressing Fernando Cruz injury spiral has Yankees standout staring at a bleak future

Tommy John surgery is one thing if you're younger. It's a procedure that has become depressingly commonplace for pitchers in their mid-to-late 20s. They miss a season and a sliver, they return with their familiar velocity, and everyone moves on with their lives after compensating for the absence. There may even be a sigh of relief over getting such an inevitable procedure out of the way so they can look to the future with less of a concern.

Tommy John surgery is quite another thing to weigh when you are 36 years old, under control with the same team you dreamed of joining your whole life for two more years until you are 38, and midway through fighting for a pennant with your brothers in an undermanned bullpen that needed more help, not less.

Look at that photo of Fernando Cruz walking off the mound. He knew. Even if he tried to play it coy in the postgame, telling the gathered media that he was unconcerned (moments after huddling with the medical staff), it was obvious he'd felt something, and it would be obvious to any pitcher what that "something" was.

Cruz was diagnosed with a partially torn UCL. He is weighing surgery, and will seek a second opinion. The news came out moments after the Yankees' hard-fought Wednesday night win to set up a rubber match with the Astros on Thursday. The seventh inning was covered by Paul Blackburn, the eighth by Michael Fulmer in his Yankees debut, and the ninth by Tim Hill. It's not what a single soul envisioned, but it's what the Yankees have at their disposal.

Fernando Cruz injury may be the end of his season, but the Yankees' problem started months ago

No Yankee fan wanted to see the compromised second-half version of Cruz this weekend against the Red Sox. His IL trip was no surprise, nor was it more than a glancing blow to the current roster; Cruz had allowed 11 runs in 13 2/3 innings over his past 16 games, tagged for five home runs, after allowing just 12 runs in his first 41 innings. Something was wrong. Something had long been wrong.

One pitch told the story to Cruz's receptors on Tuesday, whether it was the 91 MPH fastball middle-middle that Jeremy Peña tattooed, or a trademark splitter that became a looping lob without the requisite deception. But the issue had persisted for months.

You cannot say, "Fernando Cruz would've never gotten injured if Brian Cashman had added two bullpen arms at the deadline to give him a breather." Injuries are fickle – they happen whether we prepare or don't. They are, as depressingly forecast earlier, mostly inevitable these days. But the ideal risk-assessment plan was to add someone viable on Aug. 3 so that Cruz, Brent Headrick, Paul Blackburn, and David Bednar didn't have to pitch in near-daily nail-biters. Occasionally, someone else could take a turn. Then, when a focal point like Cruz goes down, they can step in seamlessly.

Instead, Cashman preferred to wait for his injured and bulk starting pitchers to transition into relief roles sometime down the line, overlooking the wear and tear of August in his calculation. Maybe Clarke Schmidt, Luis Gil, Ryan Weathers, and slapdash pickups like Fulmer will eventually be key pieces of a playoff bullpen. But the vast majority of those pitchers are not here right now, and were certainly not here in July and August when they were needed.

Cashman could get the last laugh here. If he does, we'll be first in line to apologize. But any on-field success here won't fix the human story. A 36-year-old Cruz went from a Yankees centerpiece to a potential non-tender candidate in a matter of weeks, with no clear succession plan and a world of uncertainty for both parties. There may have been no way to prevent it, but that won't make anyone feel any better about it.

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