Juan Soto unnecessarily dives on wrist in second Yankees injury scare in as many days

Watching every spring training game through gritted teeth hoping your players don't get injured is no way to go through life. Unfortunately, it's been Yankees fans' lot in life since long before the modern era -- around the time Curtis Granderson snapped his forearm and Mark Teixeira reached the beginning of the end with his wrist sheath in 2013.

Juan Soto, this offseason's shiny new toy and a potential one-season wonder if things go wrong, didn't seem like an injury risk until he actually took the field. Spring training is all about getting your body right, and Soto's body appears to be operating a half-step behind his motivated baseball brain right about now.

Though the slugger drilled a whistling liner home run on Sunday in his pinstriped debut, his first at-bat ended with him crumpled up in the box on a hard swing. For an encore freakout on Monday afternoon, he opened the contest by diving for a Carlos Santana single, which might have represented the most unnecessary risk in the cursed recent history of spring training baseball.

From the "I'll Believe It When I See It" Department, Soto appears to be fine after taking flight on a bloop and landing on his wrist. Neat. Can we just sim to Opening Day, please?

Yankees star Juan Soto gives fans injury heart attack again with headlong dive

Soto did take his AB in the bottom of the first, taking one swing on a foul ball and striking out looking.

Theoretically, if a pitcher gets hurt, the Yankees still have Blake Snell and their minor-league depth to fall back on. Extremely annoying, but it will happen and they'll have to cope.

If Soto gets hurt, especially on a silly stunt? There's no backup plan. The team is just significantly less watchable, and would then have to commit gobs of their future payroll to a player who'd suddenly be an uncertainty.

That's why every dive, twist and sprint concerns Yankee fans. Because it would be the most Yankee thing to ever happen for Soto to render their front office's best move in years moot with a leap and a dream.

Nothing to see here! Definitely pay no attention to that screenshotted wrist pronation!

In good news, Nestor Cortes Jr. is averaging above 94 MPH on his fastball and looks crisper in his first game action of 2024. In horrid news, Soto just picked him up and hucked him across the field. Juan, no!