Injuries not excuse but reason for Yankees fall

While no one will be pulling out the world’s smallest violin any time soon and playing a sympathy song for the New York Yankees, the fact of the matter remains that the massive amounts of injuries this team has incurred are the main reason they will break their streak of 13 consecutive playoff appearances.

Yankee haters will turn to the “injuries are no excuse” or “every team has injuries” cards, trying to diminish the extent and effect that these have decimated the team. Instead, they will argue that it is the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox who will ultimately be responsible for the demise of the 2008 Yankees.

I am here to tell the Yankees critics one thing: You’re wrong and the Baby Boss is right.

That’s right, amidst all the comments by the media that Hank Steinbrenner is a blow-hard (or worse), he has been right more times than he’s been wrong since taking the reigns of the Yankees.

He was right to choose Joe Girardi over Don Mattingly (as a Mattingly fan it pains me to say that), right that Joba Chamberlain should be a starting pitcher, right that Mike Mussina needed to pitch “more like Jamie Moyer” and right that, “There’s only so much you can do. They’re not supermen. (These injuries) would kill any team.”

Injuries are expected when your roster consists of men with such a high average age, but no one could anticipate the extent they occurred this year with 20 trips to the disabled list—20!

Let’s start at the top. Ace and consecutive 19-game winner Chien-Ming Wang starts the season 5-0 then injuries his foot on June 15 in an interleague game while running the bases—something he shouldn’t be doing in the first place. Out for the season.

Veteran newly re-signed catcher Jorge Posada injuries his right shoulder early in the season and never recovers—now out for the year. Starting left fielder Hideki Matsui and starting pitchers Phillip Hughes and Ian Kennedy have also been out for the majority of the year, forcing the Yankees to sign Sidney Ponson and deal with a combination of Daniel Rasner/Dan Giese to fill the fifth rotation spot.

Aside from the fact that the Yankees lost the bats of Matsui and Posada, more importantly they lost Posada’s ability to manage the Yankees stable of veteran and inexperienced pitchers. What could be more important? Oh, I forgot, losing your ace. Give the Yankees a moderate 8 more wins to this point from Wang and they’re battling for the division lead.

GM Brian Cashman has done an adequate job of replacing the offense in making spectacular trades for outfielder Xavier Nady and catcher Pudge Rodriguez though, at this point, it looks like too little too late. While not an excuse, it is inequitable to ignore the Yankees massive amount of injuries as the primary reason for their 2008 failures.

Steinbrenner placates to media about Bonds

Let me start by saying that I hope I don’t lose what few readers I have by posting two New York Yankees columns in a row. Some “news” stories hit me a certain way that I feel the need to comment and with the Yankees, well, what could be bigger?

Anyway, back to topic. Now that we’re over 100 games into the 2008 MLB season and former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds is still unsigned by any club, just the mention of his name is sure to grab headlines. And, like him or not, Hank Steinbrenner has already learned the media-suaveness of his father and is using it to his and his team’s advantage.

Chances are every team at one point or another has had someone in their front office make a mention of Bonds. Whether it was in passing, a serious discussion or what-have-you, his name has been brought up in every front office around the league. The only stories we have heard about Bonds up until this point have been, “Nobody is going to sign him” even though everyone has discussed him. And nobody will sign him.

Following their normal annual meeting after the All-Star break at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa to discuss franchise and personnel decisions through the end of the season, A reporter asked Steinbrenner what issues were covered. His response?

"We covered everything, including Bonds."

Genius. Five words that in reality meant nothing but for sports writers meant an article with a headline of “Yankees may bring in Barry Bonds,” “Yankees talk about Bonds,” “Yankees to add Bonds?”

It is the non-story of all non-stories. Instead, they should be writing about how the Yankees are interested in trading for San Francisco Giants catcher Bengie Molina, Seattle Mariners pitcher Jarrod Washburn or Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Xavier Nady. But no, those are reserved for the last two paragraphs, with the prior being about a story that doesn’t exist.

At some point the media changed. It switched from reporting news stories about facts and rumors to reporting and inferring stories from quotes. Steinbrenner easily could have said, ‘We covered everything including trades and free agents.” But he didn’t, because he knew how to get the story, and it only took five words to do so.