Gleyber Shortage

 

When Gleyber Torres left the game this weekend with a thankfully mild injury, my first thought was 'figures'.

The Yankees' modern culture is getting injured and losing ALCSs. There's no legacy of winning or getting to the World Series, there's no perennial standouts, there's just 'well, you could have been there if you were healthier'. We're not the 70s Steelers anymore, we're the 70s Raiders. And even they managed to win once or twice. 

The Yankee experience has been boiled down to 'oh, well once x gets back off the IL we'll be set', and then that player gets off the IL and isn't the same. Carlos Rodon still hasn't reached any of the material that made him great with Chicago or San Francisco, he's more along the lines of the stuff he had before then that nearly got him cut from the White Sox. 7.36 ERA with 11 strikeouts in 3 starts? Either we rushed him from the injury or he just doesn't have it this year. Severino similarly looks shaken in his return from the injury plagued years, and it's kinda upsetting. At least Tommy Kahnle isn't a shell of his former self post-injury, but I'm still worried for Jonathan Loiasiga when he comes back. 

On top of that, we're still waiting for Frankie Montas's first start of the season, we've lost Jose Trevino and Josh Donaldson for the season, and we're hoping that Nestor Cortes and Aaron Judge are back soon enough. Because unlike the 2019 year, where we had enough depth pieces to stop up from completely submarining when everybody got hurt, we're in 5th place right now. The Red Sox are selling and they're doing about as well as we are. And I bet Cashman still wants to buy.

Hence why I got so worried when Torres left early. Gleyber has been one of the few bright spots of the Yankees in July, hitting .325 this month with 11 RBIs and 25 hits. Torres hasn't been a super-duper-star like many fans wanted him to be, but he's been consistent, reliable and capable of several different types of winning moves. Though Bader has had his moments, Rizzo's been heating up and Stanton's been hitting lots of home runs, Torres has been carrying this team, as we've always wanted him to. It's just...not enough right now because half the team's injured.

As I write this, the Yankees are getting killed by the Mets. They're headed to Baltimore this weekend. It's a little odd that I may have been there for one of their few wins of July 2023. I really hope that there's an uptick of some sort, but...again, I'm putting all my hope on the backs of people who are injured to get right back into where they were, and that's not sustainable. It hasn't been this far.

Coming Tonight [?]: Conversely, someone who's honestly playing really well as I write this.