The New York Yankees have started the 2020 season with a bang, in the injury department. In just one short month, the Yanks went from having one of the best rosters in baseball to a roster littered with missing players and reserves. The outfield will consist of all backup players on Opening Day — Brett Gardner, Mike Tauchman, and Clint Frazier.
As we move forward towards the regular season, the Yankees will rehab players like Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, James Paxton, Aaron Hicks, and more. The starting pitching unit has been stripped thin after losing Paxton for several months, Luis Severino for the entire season, and Gerrit Cole’s confidence after allowing four homers in two innings against the Detroit Tigers last week.
However, the Yankees are familiar to picking up the slack that others leave behind due to injury, and they will do just that in 2020.
Here is the latest news around the New York Yankees empire:
Sanchez, 27, is the latest Yankee to deal with an ailment during spring training, seemingly picking up where the team left off last year, when New York put a major-league-record 30 players on the injured list. Sanchez was scratched from batting practice Saturday after starting two consecutive games for the first time this spring and didn’t participate in full practice Sunday.
Joe LoGrippo – Pinstripe Alley:
Not only does Higashioka feel like this is his time, but he’s also proved it on the field so far. It didn’t really even matter what the other catchers did during the spring. As long as Higgy showed the Yankees something they liked, he would get the job. This spring, he has recorded five hits in eight games, including a pair of home runs. Along with that, he owns a .912 OPS and a .333 on-base percentage. It’s pretty easy to understand why the race for the backup catcher role is all but over.
Judge, the latest star sidelined in this massive screwup, has a stress fracture to his first right rib that he suffered while diving for a ball in September. The Yankees will reassess Judge after two weeks, they said Friday — as if Judge, after failing to heal over the past six months will miraculously mend in two weeks. Opening Day is less than three weeks away.
Stanton suffered a Grade 1 right-calf strain during a fielding drill on Feb. 26 and hasn’t played since. This past week, GM Brian Cashman said he didn’t think Stanton would be ready to play on Opening Day and explained sometime in April was more realistic.