We all knew the Yankees’ uncommon good fortune with injuries was going to crash to a halt at some point, and now it has.

It was a shockingly quiet spring training and first month of the regular season in the trainers’ room in which the only notable player to go down was, to the surprise of no one, Giancarlo Stanton, who punched his annual ticket to the injured list in late April. God knows how long this IL stint will be because he just had a setback so there’s no sign that he’s close to returning.

But once the calendar flipped to May, the old Yankee injury misfortune we’ve all come to expect began in earnest.

Ben Rice missed three games with a bruised hand, but at least he was able to return quickly. Jasson Dominguez crashed into a wall and wrecked his head and shoulder so he’s done for some time. Jose Caballero sprained a finger and he went on the IL Tuesday. And now the biggest one of all, Max Fried left Wednesday’s miserable loss to the Orioles after three ineffective innings with left elbow soreness and when you hear that, the chances of that not being a major problem are slim to none.

“Just felt like early on he was having a hard time getting loose and it was taking him several pitches to get to his point,” Aaron Boone said. “He was feeling a little something in between starts, not all that abnormal that he feels that during the season. Threw his pen, felt good about that, but he was having a hard time to get to where he normally gets (Wednesday).

“I knew he was a little off when I talked to him after the third so I just said let’s pull it here. In talking to him, not that concerned, and where (the discomfort in the elbow) is. We’ll do the testing and whatnot tomorrow. He doesn’t seem too concerned about it, but we’ll see.”

They always say they aren’t overly concerned, and then the hammer hits the nail. If his imaging Thursday shows something, that could mean two or three months, or it could be a catastrophe and his season is over depending on what it is.

Fried didn’t send up any red flags when he spoke to the media, but again, that’s what athletes do when they talk about their injuries. We’ll see what the tests show because this is three straight starts where he hasn’t been very good and you wonder how much this has been bothering him.

“Just a little uncomfortable and tight, especially in between innings, it was hard to loosen up,” Fried said. “First hitter was like 88, 90, 91 (mph) and by the end, 20 pitches in, I was able to get things loosened up. Just wasn’t sharp and I wasn’t helping the team so at a certain point we just said hey, let’s make sure we can calm this thing down and get ahead of it. I’m not too worried about a super long-term thing.”

So, now we wait anxiously, and it seems that all the consternation about what the Yankees were going to do in their crowded rotation once Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole returned was wasted breath because, as is so often the case, circumstances usually come before decisions.

Assuming Fried is going to miss time, perhaps significant time, Ryan Weathers and Will Warren are no long competing to be the No. 5 starter; they’ll be staying in the rotation with Rodon and Cam Schlittler, and the Yankees will actually need someone to fill the Fried void until Cole is ready.

The good news is Weathers and Warren have been terrific and hopefully that will continue. The bad news is one of them - probably Weathers - was likely headed to the bullpen to upgrade what is without a doubt the biggest weakness on the team, and now if Fried is out that won’t happen.

The Yankees are really slow-playing Cole’s rehab, but it might be time to hit fast forward on that. In his last start Sunday at Double-A he threw 77 pitches, struck out eight and reached 99 mph on his fastball. Give him one more start this weekend, then bring him back and stop wasting pitches in the minor leagues.

He doesn’t need to be a seven- or eight-inning horse right away. Work him in slowly as if he was still pitching in the minors and back him up with one of the long relievers like Paul Blackburn or Ryan Yarbrough if need be.

That’s my thought, but I know damn well the super conservative Yankees won’t do that, so someone else will have to step up. The last time they needed a fifth starter was when they sent ineffective Luis Gil out the door and brought up highly-rated prospect Elmer Rodriguez so maybe that happens again, but he proved in his two starts that he wasn’t quite ready.

It has been a pretty shitty week for the Yankees in so many ways, so lets hope a day off before they start the first half of the Subway Series Friday at Citi Field helps them take a breath and regroup. And lets also hope the news on Fried isn’t as bad as I fear it might be.

➤ Last Saturday in Milwaukee was the worst loss of the season for the Yankees, but it didn’t hold the title very long because this one shot right to the top. To lose a game where Ryan Weathers had a no-hitter through six innings, and then he comes out and Brent Headrick gives up a three-run homer to Coby Mayo in the seventh and that decides it? Coby Mayo. Are you kidding me?

➤ Mayo wasn’t even supposed to be in the lineup but Samuel Basallo, a much, much better hitter, was scratched late because of an injury so Mayo and his .158 average and .218 on-base percentage played first base. And he ends up being the hero. This is the kind of stuff that makes baseball the greatest game in the world, but it also drives you batty when this shit happens against your team.

➤ Weathers was great. He gave up one hit, three walks and whiffed nine on 101 pitches. Unfortunately, he lost the no-hitter on Adley Rutschman’s leadoff single and after an out, he walked Tyler O’Neill so Aaron Boone turned to Headrick. The lefty has been surprisingly good all year, so good that he had inherited 14 baserunners and none of them had scored. Well, now two have scored as he served up a meatball to Mayo who ripped it down the line in left. That was sickening to watch.

➤ This was Headrick’s MLB-leading 22nd appearance and it feels to me that the Yankees are just going to get as much as they can and ride him into the ground and then replace him at the trade deadline. He may already be feeling the effects of the usage. Since he debuted with the Twins in 2023, his season-high for games was 17 last year for the Yankees. He gave up a home run in his last outing in Milwaukee, and now this.

➤ As for the offense, a fourth straight hideous performance. Someone named Brandon Young, who now has a 5.59 career since debuting in 2025, gave up a two-run opposite field homer to Ben Rice in the third. That was pretty much it. There were two other hits and three walks, but the Yankees continued their recent trend of being horrible with runners in scoring position. They were 0-for-6 and 4-for-29 in the four-game losing streak.

➤ Useless Jazz Chisholm left two men on base in the first, one in the third, one in the sixth, and then he struck out to open the ninth. Useless Austin Wells went 0-for-3 and is now hitting .180 with five RBI. Five RBI in we’re in the middle of May. Trent Grisham is not quite as useless because at least he has 26 RBI, but he’s now hitting .175 with a .311 on-base after an 0-for-3. Boone has to stop batting him leadoff. The top of the batting order should be this, every damn day: Rice, Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger. That’s it. Never change it.

➤ Jose Caballero didn’t start but he pinch ran in the ninth and got his ass thrown out stealing by a mile to end the game. Not great, but I’m not sure it even mattered. Max Schuemann was at the plate, and Wells was on deck. He didn’t start because an MRI revealed that he has a fractured middle finger on his throwing hand, so he goes to the 10-day IL and the Yankees called up Anthony Volpe, who did not deserve to be called up. In 42 plate appearances at Triple-A he was slashing .205/.238/.333 with a .570 OPS, a 2.4 BB% and a 23.8% strikeout rate, a couple fielding errors and baserunning blunders.

➤ The losing streak ended thanks to a five-run eruption in the third inning against Orioles lefty Trevor Rogers that was keyed by Bellinger’s sheer hustle; Will Warren was very good yet again; and the bullpen didn’t blow it.

➤ Paul Goldschmidt hit Rogers’ first pitch of the night for a long home run to left, and in the third inning it all came apart for Rogers. Believe it or not, Wells got it started with a single and then Judge and Rice walked to load the bases with one out. Bellinger then made the play of the game. He hit what could have been an inning-ending double play grounder that would have left the score 1-0, but he beat the relay as a run scored. Amed Rosario - who started at second in place of Chisholm - then did the same thing as he beat out an infield single to plate another run. That kept the line moving and Grisham - who was batting in the No. 6 spot which is the right place for him - launched a three-run homer. Those five runs all happened because Bellinger hustled out of the box.

➤ Warren had a shutout into the sixth but three of the four hits he allowed came in that inning and the result was two runs with Basallo and Tyler O’Neil driving them in. Warren walked just one and struck out six.

➤ Fernando Cruz got the last out of the sixth and had a 1-2-3 seventh, Jake Bird gave up two hits in the eighth so Tim Hill came in and got two groundouts to kill the threat, David Bednar had a rare easy ride in the ninth to close it out so add it up and it was 3.1 innings of scoreless bullpen work.

➤ Schuemann started at short because Volpe wasn’t yet with the team and he did himself no favors in terms of future playing time as he made an error and while he had a single and a walk, he got thrown out stealing twice.

➤ This game was originally scheduled for 6:35 but incoming rain pushed it up to 1:05. Sadly, the Yankees’ offense didn’t get the memo. What an embarrassing no-show, shut out on one measly hit by Kyle Bradish and three relievers. It was hard to believe how bad the Yankees were and it extended what is now officially a slump. Outside of their five-run inning Tuesday night, the Yankees scored only nine other runs during this 1-5 stretch against Milwaukee and Baltimore.

➤ The Yankees lit up Bradish on May 2 at Yankee Stadium, but they looked foolish against him in this game, especially his curveball as they struck out seven times on that pitch.

➤ Volpe started at short, and he picked right up where he left off last year. He made an error and went 0-for-3 including a strikeout with men on first and second to end the only threat the Yankees had in the fifth. Caballero said, “Ten days, that’s the max I’m taking” meaning he thinks he’ll only miss the minimum on his IL stint. Let’s hope he’s right because watching Volpe is not something I’d like to do much longer.

➤ Just about everyone sucked in this series, but special mention to Ryan McMahon and Spencer Jones. Just when we thought McMahon was coming around, he’s 0-for-15 in his last four games with six strikeouts. And Jones, I mean come on. He has looked clueless, 1-for-12 since his recall with six whiffs which is exactly what I expected. I just don’t see it with him.

➤ You could tell Fried was off right from the start and the Orioles got a run in the second on two hits, the second an RBI double by Mayo who apparently just needed the Yankees to get his feeble bat straightened out. In the third, more trouble as two singles a walk and a sac fly made it 3-0. Paul Blackburn took over and in the fifth he gave up a two-run homer to Rutschman and at that point, the Yankees should have just forfeited because they were done.

A much needed day off before the Yankees bus over to Citi Field to take on the stunningly bad Mets this weekend and being honest here, would anyone be surprised if the Mets - who have been walking dead since Day 1 - suddenly wake the hell up and put it on the Yankees? I know I wouldn’t, but if that happens, it would be even more embarrassing than getting one-hit by the Orioles.

The Mets are a disaster and are currently without four Opening Day position starters - Francisco Lindor, Francisco Alvarez, Luis Robert, and Jorge Polanco - plus starting pitcher Kodai Senga. They have scored the second-fewest runs in MLB, and their .291 on-base and .634 OPS are dead last.

➤ OF Juan Soto: He missed three weeks with an injury, and since the start of May he’s in one of the worst slumps of his career hitting .146 over the last 11 games with three RBI. Then he left Wednesday’s game after fouling a ball off his foot and is listed as day-to-day so there’s a chance he could miss the series, though I doubt it.

➤ OF Carson Benge: The rookie got off to a woeful start and was hitting .130 on April 12, but since then he has hit .267 in the last 24 games with a .726 OPS and he had a walk-off RBI single Wednesday night against the Tigers.

➤ 3B Bo Bichette: He has started terribly in his first season with the Mets with just two homers and a .272 on-base while also playing below average defense at his new position.

➤ 1B Mark Vientos: Because they said goodbye to Pete Alonso, the Mets don’t have a true first baseman. Vientos is trying, but he’s struggling, though at least he leads the team with five homers.

➤ RP Devin Williams: I guess the Mets weren’t paying attention to the Yankees last season and didn’t realize Williams probably isn’t cut out for New York. He’s been awful with a 5.27 ERA and 1.610 WHIP.