The New York Yankees announced that Kendrys Morales was placed on the IL with a calf strain. Additionally, Mike Tauchman and Nestor Cortes Jr. were called up to fill empty roster spots.
Morales
We aren’t really sure why Morales is on the IL, but we can guess that he injured it sometime during game one of the doubleheader with the Mets.
Morales has been awful for the Yankees. He has the lowest average on the team at .194, and has played terrible defense. All of that adds up to a -0.8 WAR.
Let’s Tauch About It! (Look, Another Crummy Mike Tauchman Joke)
Mike Tauchman is back in the bigs after some time in AAA, and is reappearing in his hometown of Chicago. Tauchman has a .211 average in 95 major league at-bats, and is batting .296 with AAA Scranton.
The Yankees also recalled Nestor Cortes Jr, but he’s been a frequent rider on the Scranton Shuttle of late.
While Morales is down, the Yankees will be rolling with an extra outfielder. Doing so gives more playing time to their all-star infield, while hopefully taking Clint Frazier out of the field more to work on his defense.
Now is probably a good place to state that Gary Sanchez, Luke Voit, Gleyber Torres, DJ LeMahieu, and Gio Urshela will all be all-stars if they continue to get votes at the rate they are now. If voting ended today, Sanchez and Voit would be starters, too. (Vote here)
But, the injury of Kendrys Morales has no negative impact for the Yankees. If anything, it just helps the Yankees, getting him and his sub .200 average out of the lineup.