Despair Is Setting In

Before we left for California, I had confidence in our team.  I would watch games, see the score, and breathe a sigh of relief.  The relief was centered around confidence; confidence we would win; confidence that we could put up enough runs from the team as a whole, to buffer the poor pitching performance.  But after the absolute nightmare of California, despair is setting in and I can’t help it.

I guess the lynch pin for me was the news about Gleyber Torres and his season ending surgery; one I hope he can rebound.  ”The Yankees announced Monday that the 20-year-old Torres will undergo Tommy John surgery on his left elbow but is expected to recover in time for spring training next year.

“It is unfortunate.” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said. “I’m thankful that it is a correctable problem,” reported ESPN on Monday. If there is a sort of white knight in this painful situation it is that the injury came to Torres’s non-throwing arm, but still…a terrible injury non-the-less.

Perhaps the Yankee GM didn’t get my despair note and therefore had this assessment of the situation according to NJ.com, “We’re going to stay the course and play our way out of this.” “That means keeping (Masahiro) Tanaka in the rotation, no trade for an available starter like Gerrit Coleman or Jose Quintana, and no call-up for right-hander Chance Adams, despite an 0.93 WHIP at Class-AAA and a .168 opponents’ average.”

Also countering my despair is Cashman’s stake in the team and as NJ.com reported,  ”Now it’s a race. Now we’ll find out if the Yankees can handle a suddenly confident opponent (the Boston Red Sox) many picked to win the pennant. Cashman says the Bombers are up to this challenge. “I believe in this team,” he said, knowing that faith is about to be tested.”

I want to believe…believe me.  Perhaps it is the lack of transparency around the progress of injuries to Aaron Hicks who just returned, Jacoby Ellsbury still symptomatic, Greg Bird apparently not ready and even Aroldis Chapman, who seemed to be taking his time back into the clubhouse only to complain about traveling across the country for one game.  Perhaps what Joe Girardi said about activating Chapman resonated with me, “I just think that, if you’re a player that’s being paid to play and you’re eligible, you’d show up,” Girardi said. “This is something I’ve heard from a couple different people about, `You’re going to fly him across the country for one day?’ How many divisions have been lost by one game in the course of history? How many playoff spots have not been guaranteed because of one game? Yeah, it’s not ideal to be all the way out here, yeah, I get that. But he had a travel day where he didn’t play. All our other players had a travel day where they played that day. If you’ve got people available that are the best, you want them here,” reported ESPN.

So hopefully I will battle my despair over the next several days with some home wins, where the Yankees appear to be fairing the best and they will cruise into the All Star Break in a way that makes my faith in the team reappear magically.