Teixeira hurts wrist, more bad news for the Yankees

AL BEast Notebook – March 6



Yankees are dropping faster than Brian Cashman out of an airplane.

Bad news continues to pile up for the Bombers. First baseman Mark Teixeira hurt his right wrist swinging in the batting cage on Tuesday and will miss at least two weeks.

Yes, he’s out of the World Baseball Classic, but the bigger news is that Tex won’t even be swinging a bat for practically the rest of Spring Training. Teixeira (approaching his mid-30’s and already in decline) is a perennial slow starter as it is, and now after missing much of last fall with a bad calf he adds a wrist injury into the mix, and takes away his preparation time for the season. He’s one of the two sluggers (with Cano) the Yankees are depending on heavily this year, and with all that has and is going on he is only getting more crucial.

Of course it’s always tough to replace Teixeira. But especially with Swisher and Chavez gone, the only real backup is Kevin Youkilis, who doesn’t even have a backup at third base. I suppose the Yankees could promote Dan Johnson (33 year old, has played just 96 games in the last five years) or Juan Rivera (34 year old career fourth outfielder) to play first, but those guys don’t even belong on the major league roster.

Speaking of replacements at third and first, the Yankees don’t even have one for Curtis Granderson in center field (it will likely be a minor leaguer—Melky Mesa or Zoilo Almonte). There is virtually no depth at all on this Yankees team.

Just to review: A-Rod is out who-knows-how-long, Michael Pineda is targeting June, Grandy is out until at least mid-May, Phil Hughes probably won’t be ready for the start of April, Jeter is hoping to be ready, Teixeira is missing a few weeks of Spring Training, Travis “DH” Hafner and Kevin Youkilis are injuries waiting to happen, and GM Brian Cashman broke his leg skydiving for charity. Other than that…

Hopefully Tex will be in uniform and have his glove (Gold Glove glove, that is) ready for Opening Day. For a team starving for power, a lingering wrist injury would cause trouble for Teixeira possibly all year and that is something the Yankees cannot afford.

(UPDATE: Mark Teixeira will be out not two weeks but two months, putting his return time around mid-May, like Curtis Granderson)