With the Yankees talking last night as though Kevin Youkilis had a good chance of going on the disabled list, joining many of his teammates – here’s Joel Sherman’s column on the dilapidated Yankees losing last night to Houston – you know what team came to my mind? The 2009 Mets.
The 2009 Mets started their season pretty healthy, unlike these Yankees; their only big-money guy missing was Billy Wagner, who had undergone Tommy John surgery in September 2008. They reached as high as six games over .500 at 21-15; the Yankees’ peak so far has been 15-9.
By the time they reached 21-15, May 16 in San Francisco, Carlos Delgado was done for both the year and his career (he played in five games for the Red Sox’s Triple-A Pawtucket affiliate in 2010 before getting hurt again), and Jose Reyes was out of the lineup and would play just twice more for the entire season. Oliver Perez was on the DL, too, after an absolutely brutal start to the season. Carlos Beltran, John Maine, Jon Niese, Fernando Nieve (he was very good that season, briefly), Johan Santana and David Wright would ultimately join those two on the disabled list.
After a while, the rash of injuries was so dizzying that you tried to guess which guys would come back and in what order, and which guys wouldn’t come back at all – and that became more interesting than actually watching the team on the field. I’m pretty sure I guessed that Reyes and Wagner would make it back and the others wouldn’t. Reyes didn’t, Wagner did (and got traded to the Red Sox) and Beltran did, also. The Mets of course couldn’t handle the downpour and wound up a woeful 70-92.
I don’t think these Yankees, even as currently constructed, are 70-92 bad. Their pitching staff is pretty good, even though Andy Pettitte’s stinker last night lifted the team ERA to 4.00, just ninth-best in the American League. Their manager is pretty good. Remember how in ‘09, we all realized just how bad a fit Jerry Manuel was as the Mets’ manager, after he enjoyed that post-Willie Randolph bounce in ’08? It was like this episode of “Seinfeld,” when Elaine realizes that the confidence that she has received from Kramer, who has been beating up school kids in karate class, is fraudulent.
But there is a similar vibe surrounding the injured players. Who among the wounded has an even a remotely concrete timeline? Only Curtis Granderson so far, and maybe Francisco Cervelli will join him; it can be easier with bones.
These Yankees have been so interesting on the field that the off-the-field stuff has been more of a sidebar than the main story. Yet if the team’s fortunes take a turn for the worse, we’ll have a secondary activity ready to go.
–I stayed up to watch the Mets lose last night, and by that time, there were only two other games still going on- Rockies-Dodgers and Angels-A’s.
I watched Skip Schumaker pitch against Colorado and logged another inning on my lifetime Scully-meter, then flipped over to the bottom of the ninth of Angels-A’s, as Ernesto Frieri gave up the one-run lead (and, overall, the Angels blew advantages of 6-1 and 7-2).
I made it through the 14th inning, but by that time, it was 3 a.m. here in New York, and I gave up. Turns out I missed plenty more, as the clubs exchanged runs in the 15th and Brandon Moss’ two-run homer off Barry Enright in the 19th finally ended it.
Besides the fact that I love the drama that comes with these ridiculously long games – shoot, Terry Collins was preparing to use Anthony Recker – I’m also curious to see how the Mets and Angels respond. Well, not so much the Mets. We know already that they’re a bad team.
The Angels (9-15) are an even worse team than the Mets (10-14), but they were supposed to be far better. Will this game be the final straw, in what could be an earth-shaking season (in other words, Mike Scioscia no longer being manager) for the Angels? I think it could, largely because the Angels’ pitching is terrible.
–Have a great day.
