NEW YORK - The look on the face of the New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi called out disaster on Thursday, he sat down, took a deep breath and said with the solemnity of the announcement of a death in the family "I have bad news."
source of bad news in the form of a dye that has been inserted into the elbow of his unusually harsh relief pitcher Joba Chamberlain (notes). Once the dye went through his arm, Chamberlain was slipped into an MRI scanner where the images were made and given to team doctors, who saw them and came back with an obvious conclusion. There was a tear in a ligament.
It's something we were not expecting. Typically, a ligamentous injury is evident, the immense pain. But Chamberlain was not feeling pain in his arm. There was a slight uneasiness that the gunman described as feeling more sensitive than the excruciating pain.
Girardi said that when the pitchers have a ligament injury, there are certain things that are not able to do so. They can not open the bottle without tearing their faces in agony. They can not make a fist and put it against his head. Chamberlain could do both. He could do them without a hint of boredom.
Thus, MRI was essentially a precautionary measure, the kind of thing only teams to make sure that the hardness and stiffness is not simply something much bigger.
But it was bigger. Much bigger. Now Chamberlain is almost certainly the year that in most stations in New York would be a sad story, but hardly cataclysmic. If a franchise has never been historically constructed to manage a relief pitcher for the post season ending Tommy John surgery, is the Yankees.
These are the Yankees, however, different. The Yankees in recent years do not need great relief pitchers to be able to buy yourself a higher starting speed that everyone and empower it with Mariano Rivera (notes) to the other side.
But you still can not buy everything. Suddenly, the Yankees are unable to take their problems away. They tried to Cliff Lee (notes) in New York in hopes that he could stand next to CC Sabathia (notes) to form a top of a rotation as good as anyone. They prayed Andy Pettitte (notes) would be back. They trusted AJ Burnett (notes) could be better and they thought that Phil Hughes (notes) would be even more.
Instead of Lee went to Philadelphia, Pettitte retired Burnett has improved, but also inefficiency and Hughes mysteriously lost the speed of his fastball and is currently waiting to start a game in the low minor leagues. His salvation is the miracle of rebirth Bartolo Colon (notes) and Freddy Garcia (notes). But how long can it last?
It's not like the Yankees do not prepare for disasters. They spent $ 35 million over Rafael Soriano (notes), through the eighth inning, but Soriano has traveled more batters than he was removed and is currently on the injury list. They hoped the signing of Pedro Feliciano (notes) and pairing with Chamberlain would be a bridge between a rotation potentially in trouble and Rivera. But Feliciano has shoulder problems and has not started a race this year. Now Chamberlain is probably gone for the rest of the season.
So before the game Thursday was like a wake. Girardi sat behind a desk in the press room at Yankee Stadium and tried to rationalize how a pitcher who does not feel pain is suddenly lost for the season.
"One thing I have is why Joba should have a high pain threshold," Girardi said. He kept nodding and saying things like "the body is an interesting thing."
Outside, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman sat on the bench and asked the same thing. Above him, dark clouds concentrated anger and a heat wave was about to break into a burst of storms that eventually prompted the beginning of the series finale against the Red Sox return of 3 ½ hours.
"Just shuffle the cards," said Cashman, the look on his face seemed to say that he knew would not be as simple as that. His sentence is now largely a collection of unknowns Article 5 microphones and get out of junk. This is not an office that controls or hold Boston to Tampa Bay
Middle-AL has become the most competitive division of play again in Toronto and Baltimore up. Suddenly, the nightmare scenario where the Yankees fall to last place, rather than surge to a division title is not so implausible.
Almost as if to prove that the Yankees are actually still the Yankees, Cashman sought shelter by the Red Sox - a team that had beaten his club seven of eight times this year - and said: "We certainly can beat the guys that is right. "
It would not be possible on Thursday. Long after the rain has changed and the clock above the left field is shifted to one hour, Sabathia faltered. Six times, he held Boston to two hits, but the seventh, he was working. The pitch count increased in the 90s, his curveball has lost its sharpness. He needed help, but the Yankees bullpen was empty. There was no saving it. When the dust settled, he was on the hook for six runs and eight hits, a delay of 2-0 spoiled.
Less than an hour after leaving the game, the Yankees won their canoe and fell out of the club. It's just a long season in June and still waiting, but as the Red Sox celebrated their second sweep Yankee Stadium this year, it became evident that the gap between these two teams is much higher than the torn ligaments in his right arm Joba Chamberlain.
"We'll be back," promised Girardi after the game.
source of bad news in the form of a dye that has been inserted into the elbow of his unusually harsh relief pitcher Joba Chamberlain (notes). Once the dye went through his arm, Chamberlain was slipped into an MRI scanner where the images were made and given to team doctors, who saw them and came back with an obvious conclusion. There was a tear in a ligament.
It's something we were not expecting. Typically, a ligamentous injury is evident, the immense pain. But Chamberlain was not feeling pain in his arm. There was a slight uneasiness that the gunman described as feeling more sensitive than the excruciating pain.
Girardi said that when the pitchers have a ligament injury, there are certain things that are not able to do so. They can not open the bottle without tearing their faces in agony. They can not make a fist and put it against his head. Chamberlain could do both. He could do them without a hint of boredom.
Thus, MRI was essentially a precautionary measure, the kind of thing only teams to make sure that the hardness and stiffness is not simply something much bigger.
But it was bigger. Much bigger. Now Chamberlain is almost certainly the year that in most stations in New York would be a sad story, but hardly cataclysmic. If a franchise has never been historically constructed to manage a relief pitcher for the post season ending Tommy John surgery, is the Yankees.
These are the Yankees, however, different. The Yankees in recent years do not need great relief pitchers to be able to buy yourself a higher starting speed that everyone and empower it with Mariano Rivera (notes) to the other side.
But you still can not buy everything. Suddenly, the Yankees are unable to take their problems away. They tried to Cliff Lee (notes) in New York in hopes that he could stand next to CC Sabathia (notes) to form a top of a rotation as good as anyone. They prayed Andy Pettitte (notes) would be back. They trusted AJ Burnett (notes) could be better and they thought that Phil Hughes (notes) would be even more.
Instead of Lee went to Philadelphia, Pettitte retired Burnett has improved, but also inefficiency and Hughes mysteriously lost the speed of his fastball and is currently waiting to start a game in the low minor leagues. His salvation is the miracle of rebirth Bartolo Colon (notes) and Freddy Garcia (notes). But how long can it last?
It's not like the Yankees do not prepare for disasters. They spent $ 35 million over Rafael Soriano (notes), through the eighth inning, but Soriano has traveled more batters than he was removed and is currently on the injury list. They hoped the signing of Pedro Feliciano (notes) and pairing with Chamberlain would be a bridge between a rotation potentially in trouble and Rivera. But Feliciano has shoulder problems and has not started a race this year. Now Chamberlain is probably gone for the rest of the season.
So before the game Thursday was like a wake. Girardi sat behind a desk in the press room at Yankee Stadium and tried to rationalize how a pitcher who does not feel pain is suddenly lost for the season.
"One thing I have is why Joba should have a high pain threshold," Girardi said. He kept nodding and saying things like "the body is an interesting thing."
Outside, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman sat on the bench and asked the same thing. Above him, dark clouds concentrated anger and a heat wave was about to break into a burst of storms that eventually prompted the beginning of the series finale against the Red Sox return of 3 ½ hours.
"Just shuffle the cards," said Cashman, the look on his face seemed to say that he knew would not be as simple as that. His sentence is now largely a collection of unknowns Article 5 microphones and get out of junk. This is not an office that controls or hold Boston to Tampa Bay
Middle-AL has become the most competitive division of play again in Toronto and Baltimore up. Suddenly, the nightmare scenario where the Yankees fall to last place, rather than surge to a division title is not so implausible.
Almost as if to prove that the Yankees are actually still the Yankees, Cashman sought shelter by the Red Sox - a team that had beaten his club seven of eight times this year - and said: "We certainly can beat the guys that is right. "
It would not be possible on Thursday. Long after the rain has changed and the clock above the left field is shifted to one hour, Sabathia faltered. Six times, he held Boston to two hits, but the seventh, he was working. The pitch count increased in the 90s, his curveball has lost its sharpness. He needed help, but the Yankees bullpen was empty. There was no saving it. When the dust settled, he was on the hook for six runs and eight hits, a delay of 2-0 spoiled.
Less than an hour after leaving the game, the Yankees won their canoe and fell out of the club. It's just a long season in June and still waiting, but as the Red Sox celebrated their second sweep Yankee Stadium this year, it became evident that the gap between these two teams is much higher than the torn ligaments in his right arm Joba Chamberlain.
"We'll be back," promised Girardi after the game.
