Yankees annoyingly lose key reliever for second time this season, replace him with wild card

For the second time this season, the New York Yankees will be sending one of their bullpen's premier strikeout artists to the Injured List.

Fernando Cruz, who reported shoulder inflammation and hit the IL on May 22 (but recovered quickly), has now been sent back to the shelf with a left oblique issue. Obliques are a notoriously finicky muscle, and given the proximity to the All-Star break, we certainly won't see Cruz and his magnificent splitter again until the latter half of July.

In his place, the Yankees will be recalling ... Geoff Hartlieb, who was touted as one of the most intriguing unlockable pieces of their spring training slate.

Hartlieb pitched 9 2/3 innings across nine games this spring, striking out 12 and walking six with a 2.79 ERA. Was that progress prescriptive, or just another spring mirage for a man with a career 7.37 ERA in 64 big-league games? We'll probably find out soon ... but only in low leverage. If the Yankees are going to be down Cruz for a while, they'd really better hope that Jonathan Loaisiga reaches some kind of equilibrium before too much longer. His undisclosed illness last week didn't help matters.

Yankees send Fernando Cruz to Injured List, promote Geoff Hartlieb

CJ Alexander, who's had Triple-A slugging success, but hasn't done much at the big-league level, was DFA'd to open up a 40-man spot for Hartlieb, something the Yankees probably toyed with doing at the end of spring training. Instead, they added Ryan Yarbrough, and the rest was history.

Thus far in Triple-A, Hartlieb's performance has largely matched the hype; he holds a 3.34 ERA in 35 innings, striking out 38 men (but allowing 35 hits).

The Yankees need reliability in the middle innings, which they lost when Yerry de los Santos hit the IL; JT Brubaker hasn't provided it yet. They need a heftier dose of setup men they can believe in, too; Cruz has mostly been a godsend, but Loaisiga and Mark Leiter Jr. have been stuck betwixt and between.

Hartlieb might be able to help with the former problem, but the latter will likely go unsolved while Cruz is on the IL. It's a pretty substantial blow to a thinning unit (though thankfully Luke Weaver looks like a full go).