Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Can The Yankees Survive The Youkilis Injury


Kevin Youkilis as we all know was placed on the 15 day DL with stiffness in his back. This DL stint was back dated to April 28th so Youk will be eligible to come off the DL before the double header with the Cleveland Indians on May 13th which is right around the time the Yankees are expecting Curtis Granderson back from injury as well. Can the Yankees weather the storm without yet another high paid star in the middle of the lineup? I think so.


The Yankees played a three game set with the worst team in baseball, the Houston Astros, and will play three games each against the Rockies and the Royals during that stretch. Throw in a weekend series with the Oakland Athletics and two off days and Youk is back for the Yankees. The combined records of these teams is 52-51 at the time of this writing, albeit heavily drug down by the Astros 8-19 record, so these games and series seem winnable. The Royals, Rockies, and Athletics have had their issues with the Yankees in recent years and the Astros should love every series they play this season conceivably so I think the Yankees can hold their heads above water with their pitching staffs until the reinforcements arrive.

Suddenly a lineup that looks like this:

Gardner
Wells
Cano
Francisco
Hafner
Ichiro
Stewart
Overbay
Nix


Will look like this:

Gardner
Wells
Cano
Youkilis
Granderson
Hafner
Ichiro
Stewart
Overbay

Not exactly murderers row but I feel more confident, what about you?


So for all the fans screaming up and down how we should not have played Kevin Youkilis on April 27th against the Blue Jays and we could backdate the DL stint another seven days, relax. Joe Girardi did nothing wrong playing a veteran player that passed all the tests and said he was fine. The Yankees will survive this just like they have survived losing Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Curtis Granderson, and the other 47 players they have lost time to this season. The sky is not falling, in fact, it is getting sunnier every day in Yankee land.

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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)