NEW YORK — Going into the week, the Yankees thought they were finally getting their rotation back.
Carlos Rodon was returning from the injured list. Max Fried had, seemingly, worked his way back from his elbow issue, allowing one run or fewer in four out of five starts since he came off the IL. Gerrit Cole had racked up 100 strikeouts in 92 innings pitched. Cam Schlittler continued to lead all American League starting pitchers with a 2.19 ERA.
The pitching staff that had carried the Yankees through an increasingly dysfunctional year was supposed to get stronger as they entered the final month of the regular season.
Change of plans. New York is figuring out how to survive without Fried again, and managing his injury sounds like it’s going to be tricky.
The southpaw landed back on the injured list this week with a recurring bone bruise in his left elbow just as Rodon returned from his own stint on the IL. Since the Yankees signed Fried last year, the trio of Cole, Rodon, and Fried have yet to appear in the rotation together. The timing is particularly cruel for a Yankees team that has spent most of the season leaning on its pitching to compensate for an Aaron Judge-less offense that’s both inconsistent and unreliable.
“You don’t want it to get too bad where it turns into a fracture,” Fried said of his elbow injury. “So you just have to be honest with the symptoms and how you’re feeling.”
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Fried had settled back into the rotation after the All-Star break and looked like the frontline starter the Yankees signed him to be. It wasn’t until his most recent outing, five innings of one-run ball against the Mariners, when the pain returned. On Friday afternoon, speaking for the first time since he landed on the IL, Fried said he was optimistic about spending the minimum 15 days on the shelf. But it’s not that straightforward.
Even if he can avoid another extended absence, the Yankees will have to be cautious with Fried to protect him from re-aggravating this nagging elbow injury. Ultimately, Fried said he needs tons of rest in order for the bone to heal. But that rest won’t arrive until the offseason.
“Before, it was definitely more intense, more pain,” Fried said when asked to compare his current IL stint to the one in May. “I would say this is something that felt similar, but just on a smaller scale. I just wanted to be as transparent as I could be with the coaching staff and the medical staff, knowing that we have a big goal at hand and I wanted to be able to take the ball and was willing to, but we thought it was better to take a little bit of a breather now, so that the rest of the season goes accordingly with no hiccups.”
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Fried was convinced he could avoid re-aggravating the injury by fixing his mechanics. He plans to spend the next couple of weeks working on his timing. He’ll get back on the mound on Saturday and throw a bullpen session. The team will closely monitor whether the inflammation in his elbow is continuing to go down. For now, surgery is off the table.
“It’s one of those things that, if you don’t aggravate it, it gets better,” he said. “But if it does, it gets aggravated a little quicker, and it could go down the wrong path. Instead of just trying to compound it or see if it would get better, it was best to take a little bit of a breather to get it right and see if it dies down.”
What if it doesn’t die down? Losing Fried for any amount of time would be a significant problem for any postseason contender. For these Yankees, it’s potentially much more consequential because of what is happening on the other side of the ball.
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The offense has become so unreliable — New York’s 79 wRC+ in the second half is second-worst in MLB behind only the Angels — that there is almost no room left for the pitching staff to have anything other than an excellent night. The offense has gone 20 straight games without scoring a run in the first inning. Their .233 batting average with runners in scoring position is ranked 27th in the majors. That puts an enormous burden on a pitching staff that has already dealt with injuries and workloads throughout the season.
Someone to watch closely down the stretch is Schlittler. The All-Star right-hander surpassed his career high in innings pitched in the first week of June. Even though Schlittler has been spectacular in his second year in the big leagues, sporting a 31.4% strikeout rate that’s ranked fourth in the AL, it’s clear that his workload is starting to catch up to him. Schlittler was unable to complete six innings pitched in four of his last nine starts. His walk rate has also gone up in that span, and he’s been laboring through his recent outings, underlining how quickly his lack of command can spiral and put more of a load on the bullpen.
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Making the situation more tenuous is that the Yankees did not add a pitcher at the trade deadline.
You can say that was understandable at the time, since Rodon was on his way back, Cole looked like Cole, Schlittler is the AL Cy Young award favorite, and Fried was back in the rotation from his injury. As far as pitching goes, their biggest problem down the stretch was supposed to be which current starter, between Ryan Weathers and Will Warren, would be shifted to the bullpen.
That’s why general manager Brian Cashman focused on buying bats, and he didn’t address other needs at catcher and in the bullpen. At the time, the calculation made some sense. Get healthy, let the rotation carry the team, and hope the bats will eventually follow.
Weeks later, the Yankees’ biggest problem is still that the bats haven’t followed. New additions in first baseman Luis Garcia Jr. and outfielder Heliot Ramos have had their moments, but neither hitter is catapulting the Yankees offense from the league’s basement to the top in the sport.
The returns of Cody Bellinger, Giancarlo Stanton and Judge would potentially be game-changing, but only Bellinger is close to joining the lineup. The outfielder, who was dealing with a hamstring strain, is expected to come off the IL on Sunday for the Yankees’ series finale against the Blue Jays. Stanton is in a running progression that never seems to end. He strained his calf in April and has only played 24 games this season.
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Judge’s timeline for returning is both the most important and the most murky. He finally started swinging off a tee this week, which was his first time picking up a bat since he fractured his rib at the end of May. His next steps and ensuing progression will be based on how he feels after swinging. This is purely speculation, since the Yankees disclose details about player injuries like they’re state secrets, but it would be surprising if Judge returned before the middle of September.
Regardless, the Yankees cannot wait for Judge to rescue them. They entered Friday just four games behind the Tampa Bay Rays for the division lead. Their goal is to win the AL East, get a breather and reset their rotation during the wild-card matchups, and then begin the playoffs with home-field advantage in the ALDS.
In order for that to come to fruition, the Yankees are simultaneously trying to replace Fried’s innings with Rodon, who is working his way back to full strength, monitor the workloads of their young or less-established starters, preserve a bullpen that has been heavily used, and survive an offense that isn’t giving them much breathing room.
That’s a precarious combination this late in the season. It’s not how a contender wants to enter September. Every mistake is magnified, and every arm who produces anything less than a quality start is putting a strain on the bullpen and offense.
The Yankees’ playoff strategy is being built around everyone being healthy at exactly the right moment. It’s also built around pitching, and they’re asking too much of it. Can the Yankees get healthy and get their bats to wake up before their pitching runs out of margin? It’s a question that will decide their fate in October.
