It has been quite an adventure for the Yankees roster this season as week by week they are fighting for playoff position and the jury bug at the same time. Last season the team battled significant injuries to key players. Despite the valiant fight they put up, the loses proved to be too much and ultimately was their undoing. The Yankees hoped that this would not be the case this year as the reloaded roster had the team primed and ready for a championship run. However, in the immortal words of Yogi Berra "it's deja vu all over again" The team finds themselves missing 4 of their starting pitchers they began the season with including C.C. Sanathia, Ivan Nova, Michael Pineda, and Japanese import Masahiro Tanaka who went down in early July with a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament. There is talk that Tanaka will be able to return to the mound before seasons end, but this very injury has already claimed the seasons of Nova and 22 other pitchers around the big leagues. Leaving many to doubt this is a possibility.
The Yankees have done all they could to compensate for the losses, acquiring Brandon McCarthy from the Arizona Diamondbacks, calling up pitching prospects Shane Greene and Chase Whitley, as well as claiming Esmil Rogers and Chris Capuano. Replacing starting pitching is very tough and often times does not work out. That is probably why the Yankees did not pull the trigger on a trade with the Chicago White Sox that would have brought them lefty John Danks, who certainly would have been a major upgrade for the pieced together rotation. In years past the Yankees would have made a big splash dive into the trade market looking for any top line player to help out; but they seemed content to make smaller sensible moves rather than the gaudy headliner. Injuries are part of any sport and every team the goes through them knows difficult it is press through a season minus a comrade. No one knows how this season of injuries will play out, but it surely looks to be another grind to the finish
