The New York Yankees placed first baseman Mark Teixeira on the disabled list Saturday with a right knee articular cartilage tear. “He made two plays, and he looked OK”. He underwent season-ending surgery a few hours before Teixeira’s knee locked up. And Brian McCann, as we discovered before the game, was unavailable because of a hyperextended left elbow.
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While it’s true that Teixeira’s offensive production has been awful, losing him Friday was just another example of this season going sideways on the Yankees, who watched Dellin Betances surrender a run for the third straight appearance.
“Obviously he’s not going to be available to us this year”, Girardi said. NY scored three runs against Tillman in the fourth. Who knows how long Tex will be out, for all we know his season is over. For the Yankees, that time came sooner than they might have expected, but still, there was no excuse for pretending it would never happen.
The Yankees are four games under.500 and 6 1/2 games out of first place in the AL Central heading into Saturday’s matchup with the first-place Orioles. “We’re going to have to play a lot better in the next two-thirds to get where we want to get”.
If it means getting his bat into the lineup more often, the Yankees should absolutely give Refsnyder the opportunity to spell Mark Teixeira when he needs a days rest… or better yet, maybe Refsnyder should just replace the.185 hitting Teixeira indefinitely. It was his first professional game at the position at any level, though he has said he played there at times in college. With the infield in, Manny Machado hit a trickler up the third base line that Chase Headley had no choice but to go to first with as Jones slid across the plate to make it 6-5. Internal options include Nick Swisher, who despite his decent start, has hit only.192/.198/.263 since the beginning of May. Neither is on the 40-man roster, but that could be easily rectified by moving Ackley to the 60-day DL. TV: 7:05 p.m. ET, YES (New York), MASN (Baltimore) PITCHING MATCHUP: Yankees RH Nathan Eovaldi (6-2, 3.71 ERA) vs. Orioles RH Chris Tillman (7-1, 2.92) Eovaldi ran his winning streak to five in somewhat miraculous fashion last time out, allowing one run over six innings and earning the victory despite the Yankees managing only one hit.
Carlos Beltran, Alex Rodriguez and Austin Romine homered for the Yankees, who have lost seven of 10.
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“Well, he just wasn’t comfortable doing it”, Girardi said ruefully. While the remainder of the 2016 Major League Baseball season could be a rough one for Yankees fans, hope for the future could come with several deals before the trade deadline. Right now, like Abbott and Costello, the team has no answer to the age-old question: “Who’s on first?”
