We’re only a week into the Major League Baseball season; so it’s still to early to panic if your favorite team didn’t get off to the undefeated start that you thought they would. The one thing that you might have to worry about is if your favorite team got off to a slow start and they’re having to deal with a lot of injuries. Right now the New York Yankees fit into this category and you have to wonder how he healthy they’ll be this season.
The Yankees where a trendy pick to win the American League East this season coming off a 100 win in which they finished 8 games behind the Boston Red Sox in their division and had to settle for a wild card.
Coning into the season the Yankees knew that they’d be without outfielder Aaron Hicks who had a breakout season for them last season. Shortstop Didi Gregorius would also start the season on the injured list as he recovers from Tommy John surgery. Gregorius began his throwing program on Monday and is expected to return in July. Then towards the end of spring training the Yankees #1 starter Luis Severino experienced some shoulder trouble that landed him on the injured list. Add to this the fact that C.C. Sabathia who is pitching in his final season had to start the season off serving a 5-game suspension which was given to him at the end of last season. Then after being down two starters the bullpen took a hit as top set up guy Dellin Betances landed on the injured list with shoulder issues.
Now ever team deals with injuries at the start of or during the season, but I’m not sure if there’s a team out there that has paced more talent on the injured list than the Yankees have. Then to make it worse the Yankees weren’t done adding to their injured list.
On April 1st the Yankees added two more players to their injury list and I’m sure there fans where hoping in was a bad April Fools joke, but it wasn’t.
DH/Outfielder Giancarlo Stanton went on the injury list with a left bicep strain. He was joined on the injury list by starting 3rd baseman Miguel Andujar who has a right shoulder strain.
The diagnosis for Stanton seems to be a couple of weeks of rest and he should be good to return, but Andujar may be a different story. There’s a chance that Andujar nay need surgery to correct his shoulder issue and if that is needed his season would probably be over.
Now the Yankees are 2-3; so there’s no need to have a panic attack. Sabathia should be done with his suspension; so he’ll be back in the rotation and may ever get the start against the Detroit Tigers today. Baring any setbacks Severino and Betances should be returning soon and hopefully the projections are right on Stanton and he’ll only miss a couple of weeks. It will take a little linger for Hicks to return as he’s de back towards the nd of the month. The Big question will be Andujar and that will depend on if he needs surgery to fix his shoulder or if just some rehab will take care of the problem.
The AL East is the most top heavy division in baseball; so as long as the Yankees can tread water until the majority of their players return they should still be able to compete not only for the division title, but a wild card spot.
What’s your concern level for the Yankees?
With nothing left to play for this season the Los Angeles Lakers have shut LeBron James down for the remainder of the NBA season.
James numbers where very good as he averaged 27.4 points per game to go with 8.5 rebounds per game and 8.3 assists per game. The only problem with James numbers is the fact that he put them up over just 55 games this season. Those 55 games was the lowest numbers of games James has played in any season though his 16 year career.
Now there have been have been a lot of talking heads on television doing their best to cover for James and pushing the blame off on everybody else except him.
Now it was clear to just about everybody that the Lakers need to find some shooters to put around James. In today’s NBA you need those guys to hit 3’s around a player like James, but James wanted veteran players around him instead of the young core of players the Lakers had.
Los Angeles gave James his wish and signed Rajon Rondo, Lance Stevenson and JaVale McGee as well as adding Tyson Chandler when he became available. While these four are solid veteran NBA players none of them where the outside shooter that the Lakers needed on the court with James.
You also have to wonder how the recruitment of Anthony Davis by James dampen the sprit of the young Lakers players. Reports where that the Lakers would be willing to deal their young core of players who are all 21 or younger to acquire Davis. Will never know what kind of affect this non-deal ended up having on the team, but it seemed as though there was some type of impact. It will be interesting to see if the Lakers end up making a deal for Davis this off season and what they’ll end up giving up to get him.
With four games left in the regular season and since the teams isn’t going to be going into the playoffs this season I guess the best the fans could hope for is that the team drops these last four games and improves their lottery chances. I won’t be surprised at all if the Lakers end up improving their draft position in the lottery, but I’m not saying it’s fixed.
So looking at the Lakers season as a whole James had quality stats, but it was for a non-playoff team. He also put those stats up in his lowest numbers of games ever. It will be interesting to see how the mainstream media spins this Lakers season to cover for James, but I think all in all this has to be considered a failure for James.
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