All My Yankees Nightmares Are Happening
WASHINGTON – Jacoby Ellsbury has been a catalyst atop the Yankees‘ lineup all season, but they will continue without his services for at least two weeks after the outfielder sustained a right knee sprain in Tuesday’s 8-6, 10-inning loss to the Nationals.
Ellsbury left the game in the fourth inning after tweaking the knee swinging at a changeup from the Nats’ Gio Gonzalez. Ellsbury worked a walk but appeared to favor the knee while running the bases, and he did not return to play defense in the bottom half of the inning.
“It’s not what you want,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “If we are going to lose him for some time, somebody’s got to step up. That’s the bottom line. It’s part of the game.”
Are we collapsing, is that whats happening here? If that’s happening, I can promise I am not in the emotional state to handle it. First Tanaka goes down and will need a couple of rehab starts to come back and now we lose Ellsbury for 2 weeks, on what looked like a nothing injury that would keep him out a day or two. You combine that with for 3-7 over the last 10 games and the fact that we are looking to Adam Warren to end a losing streak, and things don’t look promising. Really our only saving grace is that the rest of our division is terrible so we will have a shot to rebound and improve.
The next few weeks present a ton of opportunity to make a move with games against a very weak AL West but for that to happen, someone is going to have to step up. The Ellsbury and Gardner tandem at the top of the order has been amazing to kick games off but now the question is who can fill that role? Odd are that if Chris Young is relied upon everyday, he will get exposed like Ichiro last year, so it’s time for Beltran to start hitting in the 2 hole or move ARod up to take pitches and work good counts. As usual, I think this team’s success may come down to ARod.
PS: I NEED Bryce Harper in Pinstripes in the worst way.