Quite A Day at Yankee Stadium as Multiple Injuries Overshadow Big Victory

What a day for the Yankees. A very nice win over the Orioles, but a disaster on the medical front as three players headed to the injured list and Aaron Judge got hit on the hand by a pitch and, despite him saying he’s fine, you sure have to wonder. No Box Score Briefs today because frankly, the Yankees alone gave me more than enough to write about. Lets get to it.

June 18: Yankees 4, Orioles 2

You knew it was too good to last, right? Everyone here is a Yankees fan or else you wouldn’t be here, and as a fan you knew the Yankees, who have been one of the most cursed teams in all of MLB when it comes to injuries the last few years, were bound to get hit - and they did, literally - in Aaron Judge’s case.

Still, even for the Yankees, Tuesday was a rather absurd day as they placed three players - Anthony Rizzo, Ian Hamilton and Cody Poteet - on the injured list, and then in the third inning of their rather hollow victory over the Orioles, Judge got drilled on his left hand and eventually had to come out of the game.

It looked bad at the time, and visions of the season blowing up before our eyes had to be dancing in your head. Just last year when Judge broke his toe and missed two months, the Yankees’ season imploded and while the 2024 team is better, is it good enough to overcome losing Judge for one, two, or maybe three months? I’d say that’s a hard no.

After the game, the always stoic Judge said all is well because x-rays and a CT scan showed no broken bones.

“It’s a big relief,” Judge said. “Just being hit there before a couple of years ago and breaking my wrist, you never know what’s going to happen. So finding out that it’s not fractured, not broken, is definitely a sigh of relief.”

Hearing that, Yankee universe breathed a sigh of relief, though I didn’t. I’ll do that the next time I see him in the lineup and doing the things he’s been doing the last month and a half. Good news on the imaging doesn’t mean he didn’t get hurt. He said the toe would be fine, too, and then he missed two months.

A hand injury for a batter is a very tough thing because of all the torque that goes into swinging a bat, so while nothing is broken, he’s going to be in pain, the type of pain that can certainly impact his productivity so my guess is that Judge misses a little time. I hope I’m wrong, but it will not be a shock if Judge isn’t in the lineup Wednesday, and maybe even a few days after, the timing of which would be horrendous with two great teams - the Orioles and Braves - in town.

It just never seems to end with this team. Yes, injuries happen every day in MLB, and it sure seems like 2024 has been a particularly rough year. Look at the Dodgers, they lost Mookie Betts (also hit on the hand by a pitch) and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the same day last weekend. But seriously, what baseball team has a day like the Yankees just had? Three guys go on the IL, and then hours later, their superstar - the one player they cannot afford to be without - gets knocked out of the game.

The Yankees dodged a major bullet when Gerrit Cole’s elbow problem didn’t lead to Tommy John surgery, at least not yet. And they dodged another bullet a couple weeks ago when Juan Soto’s forearm pain didn’t become a Tommy John surgery. Could they have dodged yet another here if Judge is, as he says, all good? That bullet is gonna find its target eventually.

If nothing else, Tuesday certainly ramped up the rivalry because not a lot gets Judge riled, but he said of the pitch by Albert Suarez, “Definitely pissed. There was a couple balls up and in. It’s part of it. They like to throw in.”

Suarez has been a cool story this year, a true journeyman who had pitched all over the world trying to save his career before finally making it back to the majors after a seven-year absence. With the Orioles losing Tyler Wells and John Means for the season, the 34-year-old Suarez has filled a gap in their rotation and had a 1.61 ERA in 14 games (seven starts) to begin the night.

He claimed hitting Judge was an accident, and I tend to believe him. “I was trying to go up and in, and I guess it was too much,” Suarez said. “I did it before. He fouled it off. I was trying to go in again and happened to hit him.”

The Yankees cried bullshit on that. “Our captain got hit. We don’t take what happened lightly,” Alex Verdugo said. “We’re none too pleased about it.”

Here are my observations:

➤ So, let’s break down the avalanche of misery. We knew Rizzo was going to the IL because he suffered a broken bone in his arm when he fell to the ground against the Red Sox Sunday night. Honestly, that didn’t even move the needle for me because he’s been so bad all season, and it meant the Yankees called up Ben Rice from Triple-A, a player who has a chance to become their first baseman of the future.

➤ Then out of nowhere came the news that Hamilton has a lat strain and Poteet has a triceps strain. Hamilton has been lousy lately, but losing him creates another hole in a bullpen that, as I’ve said all year, just isn’t very good. And Poteet had been filling in so well for Clarke Schmidt, and with Cole coming back Wednesday, Poteet could have easily slid into the bullpen. Now he’s gone, too. The Yankees have only three guys who they can count on in the bullpen - Clay Holmes (usually), Luke Weaver, and, believe it or not, Michael Tonkin. That’s it, because Tommy Kahnle, Caleb Ferguson and Victor Gonzalez have been garbage, and you never know what you’re going to get from Ron Marinaccio.

➤ As for the game, on any other night this would be a wonderful triumph, but all the injury news sure dumped a bucket of cold water on it. Nestor Cortes was terrific as he shut down one of the best lineups in the majors for six innings on five hits with no walks and six strikeouts. And then Tonkin and Weaver pitched a scoreless inning each, setting the stage for Holmes to drive us all insane which he often specializes in.

➤ Gunnar Henderson led off the ninth with a single and Anthony Santander roped a two-run homer so in the span of four pitches, the Orioles were very much alive. Then Holmes fell behind 3-0 on Jorge Mateo and was in danger of bringing the potential tying run to the plate against a team that leads MLB in home runs. However, he rebounded to strike him out and then got Colton Cowser on a grounder to end it.

➤ The Yankees opened the scoring with a run in the second as Gleyber Torres - who had a very nice night in the field - walked and took third on a double by Austin Wells. However, Torres got thrown out at home on the dreaded contact play as DJ LeMahieu, who is truly useless as a hitter now, hit a weak grounder to short with the infield in. Why Torres ran, who knows because with the infield in, he had no chance. It was just a giveaway out. Thankfully, slumping Anthony Volpe came through with a two-out RBI single.

➤ Then in the tragic third, Judge got hit but stayed in momentarily. He went to third on Verdugo’s single and scored on a Giancarlo Stanton single. That brought up Rice and he ripped his first MLB hit, a single to right to load the bases, and Torres’ sac fly made it 3-0. Of course, LeMahieu left two men on base so the chance for a really big inning died. And another great chance was wasted in the fourth as Suarez walked three men but Rice flied out to end the threat, meaning the Yankees had left nine men on base through four innings. Not good.

➤ The last run came in the fifth as Torres also got hit on the hand, but apparently not as seriously as Judge. He eventually scored on LeMahieu’s sacrifice fly. By night’s end, the Yankees were 3-for-12 with runners in scoring position and left 10 men on base, but because the Orioles couldn’t get any offense going, it didn’t cost the Yankees.

➤ And then to wrap up this pretty shitty day came the news that Willie Mays - who was my favorite player when I was just becoming a baseball fan in the 1969, 1970, 1971 time frame - died peacefully at the age of 93. What a player, a man who I and many others considered the greatest living ballplayer, and his passing now passes the torch onto his God son, Barry Bonds.