Palladino: Yankees' Early Mojo Calls Only For Guarded Optimism
By Ernie Palladino
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Spring training stats can fool anybody, which is exactly why one should take special care in extrapolating any of the Yankees' current successes into a return to the postseason.
The happenings so far have been encouraging, no doubt. Even Alex Rodriguez and his two surgically-repaired hips have put up a dreamy .444 average and .545 on-base percentage in the early exhibitions. The sampling obviously is small -- four games between third base and DH, nine at-bats. But still, Rodriguez coming out this way after a full season's PED suspension has the optimism churning.
There was Masahiro Tanaka's 29-pitch simulated game where he threw easy and pain free enough to declare himself ready to throw in a game. And CC Sabathia and his degenerative landing knee appeared sound for the moment after his simulated game.
And then there was Michael Pineda's two-inning stint Monday where he gave up one hit, struck out two, walked one, and just had himself a grand old time. Finally free from the shoulder and back pain that limited him to 13 starts in 2014, Pineda's command looked so good that some have started to attach the word "ace" to his description.
Although Brian McCann and Mark Teixeira have yet to really get their bats going, nobody around George M. Steinbrenner Field seems shy about predicting their first postseason appearance since 2012.
"Absolutely," McCann told The Post. "The confidence level is high, if we keep our regulars on the field. But that's every team's goal, keep the regulars on the field."
And that will be the issue that makes or breaks the Yankees. Things may look good now, but make no mistake that this is fragile squad. Despite the early encouragement, nothing has really happened to change a rotation that is one bad landing or one awkward pitch away from destruction. There is no getting away from the fact that Teixeira and McCann and A-Rod, three of those regulars from whom the team must get production, are not getting any younger or more durable.
News from elsewhere in the AL casts a shadow over the optimistic tones emanating from Tampa. Yu Darvish, the Rangers' hard-throwing Japanese import, will likely undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery after suffering the same injury as Tanaka had last season.
Tanaka decided to rest his partially torn ulnar collateral ligament. Though he feels fine now, the physiological reality is that ligaments don't heal. Rehab strengthens the muscles around them to absorb some of the stress of the pitching motion. But the ligaments themselves just sort of sit there, damaged, and gradually continue tearing until they go pop all together.
Girardi knows that. And he knows he may not have Tanaka the entire season.
He can only wait, watch, and hope the offending connector remains intact.
And then start another substitutional tap dance like last year.
"Whatever is going to happen will happen," Girardi fatalistically said, according to the New York Times. "A lot of times with that injury, you will lose your control before it tears completely. That hasn't happened to him yet."
Teixeira, an old 34, feels good right now, but one wonders how long it will be before some ache, pain, or calamity befalls him. McCann may never again be the hitter he was in Atlanta.
Were baseball played by recognition factor alone, the Yanks would run away with the AL East. They would consider a postseason berth not as a goal, but as a starting point to winning another World Series. The recent lineup that featured Jacoby Ellsbury, Brett Gardner, Carlos Beltran, Teixeira, McCann, Chase Headley, and A-Rod 1-through-7 would turn the regular season into a coronation walk.
But the baseball names alone don't win games, and the ones Girardi will write on the lineup card are mostly old, some recovering, others waiting for the injury shoe to drop and ruin their seasons.
For all the encouraging things happening in Tampa today, the Yankees' future has become a dicey proposition. With this team, today's hopes can easily turn into tomorrow's doom.
So enjoy the spring, for who knows what the summer will bring.