Injury Woes Continue for Yankees

It’s never a gentle breeze that blows through the Bronx, or even a moderate wind that that flaps the flags that fly atop Yankee Stadium; it’s always a god damn destructive hurricane that shakes the place to its core.

How do you know it’s summertime in Yankee land? Simple. Every day around three hours before first pitch when Aaron Boone meets with reporters, you hold your breath waiting for the next piece of shitty news that he’s going to share.

The Yankees didn’t even play on Thursday, yet there was still a calamity as reliever Carlos Lagrange, who was being counted on to be a bullpen savior, was placed on the Triple-A injured list. “It’s definitely going to cost him some time,” Boone said before Friday’s night’s 5-2 victory over the Twins which ended the Yankees miserable seven-game losing streak.

Of course, when he says that, it usually means you can forget about seeing him any time soon and sure enough, around the eighth inning the word came out that Lagrange suffered a capsular sprain in his throwing shoulder, he won’t throw for six weeks, and by the time he’s able to get on the mound the season will be close to over.

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If that timeline holds, it would be hard to picture the Yankees having Lagrange pitch out of the bullpen in the postseason if he’s had almost no time with the team in that role before October.

However, that wasn’t even the worse news because Boone also revealed the more impactful headline that Carlos Rodon has a sore elbow and he’s headed to the 15-day IL. Someday, maybe, Rodon, Gerrit Cole and Max Fried will be in the rotation at the same time, but it remains a myth at this point.

Reporters asked Rodon what he thought and he said his UCL is intact so he didn’t think it was too serious and he should be back relatively soon. Pitcher injuries are never “relatively soon” with the Yankees, so my guess would be Rodon will be out a month, maybe more.

“It could be one of those things where it’s up to a week of no-throw, but it might not be that long,” said Rodón. “It’s based on how I feel. I want to be back as soon as I can, whenever I’m ready. It comes with the territory when you throw a baseball for a living. Pitching is not the most natural thing, so I wish it wasn’t the case, but it is.”

Look, every team has injuries, but with the Yankees it just never seems to end. And while every team has injuries, not many have as many stars on the IL as the Yankees do with Rodon, Fried, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. The Yankees’ injury woes have become as much of a summer ritual as the annual Summer Swoon, and yes, it is not lost on me that those two things go hand in hand. This is what happens when you rely on a bunch of guys who are mostly in their 30s; they break down because Father Time is undefeated.

Elmer Rodriguez is probably the long-term Rodon replacement being that he has already made five starts with the Yankees this season, but Rodriguez just pitched for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Thursday so he’s not available right now. Thus, Brendan Beck was recalled and he’s going to start Saturday against the Twins.

Beck has made 16 starts this year for the Rail Riders and is 7-2 with a 3.07 ERA, and a 1.023 WHIP across 88 innings. He made his MLB debut on May 7 on a day when the Yankees threw a bullpen game against the Rangers and won 9-2. Paul Blackburn pitched the first inning, then Beck handled the next three and allowed two runs on two hits and three walks.

Before all this happened, David Bednar was reinstated from the paternity list and the Yankees sent reliever Yovanny Cruz back to Triple-A, opting to keep the useless Jake Bird on the roster. These are the things that drive me nuts with this team.

Bird has done nothing to warrant a spot on the roster. He has been a stiff from the moment the Yankees acquired him at last year’s deadline, this season pitching to a 4.44 ERA and 1.291 WHIP in 31 games. Meanwhile, in his two brief stints with the Yankees the hard-throwing Cruz appeared in three games and has pitched 4.1 scoreless innings allowing just one hit and no walks while striking out six. What am I missing here?

Boone was asked about this ridiculous decision to choose Bird over Cruz and he said of Cruz, “If he’s got that splitter going and the strike-throwing going, then it gets really exciting. There’s been some consistency stuff at Triple-A, [but] a lot of good, and obviously, in his couple shots here he’s thrown the ball really well.”

Yeah, he has, so why not let him keep throwing for the Yankees instead of Bird, let alone the other stiffs like Camilo Doval and Ryan Yarbrough? It just makes zero sense to me why the Yankees slow play their prospects to such absurd lengths.

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⚾ SP David Peterson, Cubs: In case you were wondering how desperate the Cubs were for starting pitching - five of their top seven on the IL - they acquired Peterson in a trade from the Mets last week. Peterson is a batting practice pitcher at best and after a surprisingly decent Cubs debut last weekend, he showed who he is on Friday as the Cardinals lit him up for 10 earned runs on nine hits and three walks inside of four innings. The Cubs then turned to another unimpressive journeyman who they just picked up, Bryse Miller, and he gave up six earned runs on seven hits and a walk as the Cubs got absolutely annihilated 17-1 by St. Louis.

⚾ 2B Luis Garcia, Nationals: When he played in Triple-A for the Rochester Red Wings coming up through the Nationals system, manager Matt LeCroy told me Garcia was only passing through town because he was on his way to becoming a star. It certainly took a little time as he really didn’t have much of an impact during his first four seasons in Washington, and after it really came together in 2024, he took a sizable step back in 2025. But this year, Garcia is in indeed a star. Friday he hit two homers and has already matched his career season-high with 18. He has homered five times in his past six games and nine in his past 13, and the reigning NL Player of the Week has 62 RBI including 41 since May 24, most in the majors since that date.

⚾ LF Jake McCarthy, Rockies: During parts of five seasons with the Diamondbacks, the most homers McCarthy hit were eight in 2024, the only year he appeared in at least 100 games (it was 142, and he hit a career-best .285). He couldn’t have been thrilled that he was traded to the lowly Rockies before this season, but it’s turning out to be a great career move. Friday he hit two homers (one a grand slam) and drove in six as Colorado pummeled the hapless Giants 15-3. McCarthy now has a personal best nine homers, his 47 RBI are just nine behind the 56 he had in 2024, and he’s slashing .308/.346/.522 with an OPS of .868, all currently career-best numbers.

⚾ SP Dylan Cease, Blue Jays: He dominated the Mariners during a 2-0 victory with seven scoreless innings, allowing three hits, one walk and striking out nine. He leads the AL with 137 strikeouts and he also has MLB’s lowest home runs per nine innings mark of 0.5. Despite the Jays’ struggles, Cease has delivered six quality starts (at least six innings, three earned runs or fewer) and he has a sparkling 2.79 ERA and 1.185 WHIP.

⚾ 1B Kyle Stowers, Marlins: He went 4-for-5 with two homers and three RBI to lead Miami to a 12-5 rout over the A’s. The Marlins continued their red-hot run as they’ve won 11 of their last 15 and have crept within 5.5 games of the Braves in the NL East and are just one game back in the wild-card race. With Stowers contributing a single, the first five men reached base in the first inning capped by Heriberto Hernandez’s three-run homer as the Marlins scored six times. Stowers later hit a solo homer in the sixth and two-run shot in the eighth.

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🔼 Rays (52-33): It just roils my stomach that this team will never go away. They won their ninth straight game Friday, 3-1 over the Astros. How in the living hell can this team win nine games in a row? Well, I guess it helps that they have the hottest hitter on the planet in Junior Caminero. Thursday he had his streak of homering in six straight games snapped, so what did he do? Got right back at it Friday by breaking a 1-1 tie with a solo shot in the seventh, and he was helped by Nick Fortes who homered and had an RBI double, and the Rays bullpen made it stand as it retired all 11 men it faced.

🔼 Cardinals (46-39): The Cardinals and Cubs have been playing against each other for 125 years, so the fact that St. Louis’ 17-1 rout was the third-largest margin of victory it has ever had against Chicago is quite a thing. They scored all 17 runs in six straight innings between the second and seventh and 13 of those runs scored with two outs, the Cardinals’ most two-out RBI in the expansion era which began in 1961. “When I say they didn’t give in, that’s what I mean,” Cardinals manager Ollie Marmol said. “They didn't chase guys around. They made them come into the zone, and when they did, they put some really good swings on it.”

🔼 Guardians (47-42): When their big four-game series against the White Sox began Thursday, the Guardians were one game behind Chicago in the AL Central. They are now one game ahead after back-to-back walk-off wins. Down 5-4 in the bottom of the ninth Thursday, Rhys Hoskins drew a leadoff walk and Brayan Rocchio hit a two-run homer for a 6-5 victory. Friday, ace Gavin Williams gave up a three-run homer to Miguel Vargas, but Cleveland tied it in the seventh on back-to-back RBI singles by Austin Hedges and Steven Kwan, then won it 4-3 in the 10th on Khalil Watson’s RBI single, the rookie’s ninth RBI in his first 50 MLB plate appearances. Cleveland is in first place despite scoring 3.99 runs per game (27th in MLB) and a team average of .229 which is 28th.

🔽 Cubs (49-38): This team is flat out schizo. They had two separate 10-game winning streaks, then had a 10-game losing streak all before the start of June. Since then, it’s been just as wild a rollercoaster ride where they have continued to either look like one of the best teams in MLB, or one of the worst. A perfect example is the last two days. Thursday the Cubs crushed the Padres 23-3, hitting eight home runs. Friday they got crushed 17-1 by the Cardinals. It should not surprise you that the Cubs are the first team in MLB history to win by 20 and then lose by at least 10 the next day, and they pushed that all the way to losing by 16.

🔽 Mariners (45-44): Seattle continues to sputter and it’s only because they play in the horrible AL West that they are still OK. Even after a 2-0 loss to the Blue Jays, they’re just a half-game behind first-place Texas, but the offense is horrid. As a team they’re hitting .231 (26th in MLB) with a .691 OPS (27th) and now they’ll be without CF Julio Rodriguez for a week as he’s in concussion protocol after getting bopped in the head by a throw. Cal Raleigh, who hit 60 homers last season, is hitting an Austin Wells-like .160 so far with just eight homers and 24 RBI (he did miss more than a month with an injury)

🔽 Padres (43-44): We Yankees fans spent the previous week screaming about a seven-game losing streak, but Padres fans have a whole lot more to be upset about regarding their teams’ current seven-game slide. They led the Dodgers 3-0 as ex-Yankee Michael King pitched six scoreless innings, but when he allowed the first two men in the seventh to reach, Adrian Morejon relieved. In just four pitches, Morejon blew his fifth save of the year as Kyle Tucker got on by an error and Teoscar Hernandez hit a grand slam which gave Los Angeles a 4-3 lead and that ended up closing the scoring. While the Yankees still have the second-best record in the AL, the Padres are now 14 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West and four games out of the final wild-card spot. Yeah, things are worse for Padres fans.

🎤 Red Sox closer Aroldis Chapman: “I feel very happy, very proud of what I've been able to accomplish. I was just focused on doing the job day in and day out. ... I try to stay positive throughout, keep a positive mindset and know that when God wants it to happen, it's going to happen. God wanted it to happen today.” Chapman became MLB’s all-time strikeout leader for a reliever, reaching 1,364 as he closed out Boston’s 5-2 victory over the Angels.

🎤 Rays manager Kevin Cash on the nine-game winning streak: “Really pleased with the guys. I think it’s surrounded by our pitching; started off by that and preventing runs, but we’re getting some big hits, we separated a couple of games, and the timely hitting has been right on point.”

🎤 Mets OF Juan Soto on the rumors about he and Francisco Lindor not getting along: “There were no issues last year, at all. We didn’t have any beef or anything. Definitely, our relationship is getting better because it takes time. When you meet a girl, you don’t start kissing her right away.”

There was no such thing as the Baseball Hall of Fame when two left-handers who would eventually have their busts enshrined in the museum that would open its doors in 1936 in Cooperstown hooked up in an epic battle on the Fourth of July at three-year-old Yankee Stadium.

Herb Pennock of the Yankees and Lefty Grove of the A’s started the first game of a doubleheader and they matched zeroes for 14 ½ innings before Grove finally blinked in the bottom of the 15th when Bobby Veach led off with a single, took second on a sacrifice, and after rookie Lou Gehrig struck out, Steve O’Neill singled up the middle to walk it off.

Pennock faced the minimum 18 batters through six innings allowing just one hit, that by another future Hall of Famer, Al Simmons, who was then thrown out stealing. Over the next eight innings he allowed just two singles, but then in the 15th, Jimmy Dykes lashed one into right-center and he sped around the bases trying to turn a triple into an inside-the-park home run.

Veach, who had pinch run for Babe Ruth earlier in the game and thus was in right field, chased the ball down and hit cutoff man Joe Dugan who then relayed it home to O’Neil, who had replaced starting catcher Benny Bengough, tagged out Dykes to keep the game scoreless.

By this point Veach was 37 years old and at the very end of his career. He played 12 years for the Tigers starting in 1912 and he led the AL in RBI three times in the Deadball Era - 1915, 1917 and 1918, and those weren’t even his best totals. From 1920 to 1922 he had 113, 126 and 128, yet his best season was actually 1919 when he led MLB in hits, doubles and triples as he batted .355 with a career-best .916 OPS.

He moved on to the Red Sox in 1924, started 1925 there, then was sold to New York and played 56 games before getting moved to Washington where he got two plate appearances in the Nationals’ seven-game World Series loss to the Pirates.

Veach played five more years in the minors but never played in the majors again, finishing his 1,821-game career batting .310 with a .370 on-base and .812 OPS, 2,063 hits and 1,174 RBI despite only 64 home runs.