ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Yankees’ pitchers have been so generous these last two nights at Tropicana Field, I double-checked to make sure this wasn’t HOPE Week.
So the Rays’ 16-1 demolishing of the Yankees Saturday night, lowlighted by Ivan Nova’s departure because of right elbow soreness as well as Dean Anna’s major league debut at pitcher, brings us to this on Sunday: The first significant test of the season for Joe Girardi’s group.
“Especially going into a day off, and then you’re going into Boston for another series, playing within your division. So you’d love to right the ship,” Girardi said. “The good thing is, [Saturday’s] game only counts as one, even though it was pretty lopsided.”
By the morning, the Yankees should know the severity of Nova’s injury, as the right-hander walked off the mound in the bottom of the fifth after Yankees bench coach Tony Pena noticed Nova delivering a pitch in unorthodox fashion and then shaking his pitching arm. A long-term loss of Nova, so crucial to keeping the Yankees in contention last year, would strike a severe blow to one of the team’s strongest and most important units.
Whether the Nova news proves positive or negative, the Yankees will want to respond with a win. You could lower the bar for this series finale, with the Yankees trailing two games to one, as they correctly will go to sixth starter Vidal Nuno after an April 15 rainout caused both Masahiro Tanaka and Michael Pineda to pitch last Wednesday, thereby leaving neither available on standard rest. Except that the injury-riddled Rays will give the ball to left-hander (and reliever, most of the time) Cesar Ramos, which theoretically turns this into a battle of the lineups.
Speaking of which, the Tampa Bay lineup has scored 27 runs the last two nights to the Yankees’ six.
“It’s tough, for sure,” Brian McCann said of getting pummeled two straight nights.
At 10-8, owners of their third two-game losing streak of the young season, the Yankees share the American League East penthouse with the Blue Jays (10-8). They have yet to lose three straight. A victory Sunday, in addition to the benefits Girardi mentioned, would alleviate some pressure from Tanaka, who will make his Rivalry debut Tuesday night at Fenway Park.
“I’m very much looking forward to it,” Tanaka said, through his interpreter on Saturday, of his first start against the Red Sox.
From all we have seen of Tanaka so far, there’s every reason to think he would embrace the challenge of being the Yankees’ stopper. Yet the Yankees would just as soon not let that discussion topic marinate through Monday’s off day.
While the Yankees hardly had avoided the injury bug before Nova’s incident, with both first baseman Mark Teixeira (strained right adductor muscle) and closer David Robertson (strained left groin), they seemed fortunate compared with the Rays, who lost a pair of top-flight starting pitchers in Matt Moore (left elbow, out for the season) and Alex Cobb (oblique, out until mid-to-late May) as well as starter Jeremy Hellickson (right elbow surgery, out until late May). Teixeira will rejoin the lineup Sunday and Robertson should be activated Tuesday, and their fill-ins performed capably.
Those setbacks seemed minor, moreover, compared with the injury epidemic that crushed the 2013 Yankees’ hopes. In all, a positive vibe has enveloped these Yankees. Their first two-game losing streaks, the opening pair at Houston and April 8-9 against Baltimore at home, didn’t generate much alarm in the clubhouse.
Two beatings at the hand of a division rival, plus a setback to a starting pitcher with Nova’s potential, will remove a group smile.
Let’s not profess that the fate of the 2014 Yankees rests on Sunday’s game, or anything approaching that. Nevertheless, a team with championship aspirations encounters myriad moments of adversity, and this ranks as the most important yet for this club.
Nuno, in light of Nova’s injury, now might be auditioning to replace Nova full-time in the starting rotation, though right-hander Bryan Mitchell will join the Yankees on Sunday from Double-A Trenton. As for Teixeira, he wants to exhibit, just like he did at the outset of the season, he can stay healthy and provide value approaching that of his prime.
Individual and group motivations exist for the Yankees to get off the schneid. There will be plenty other big games. At the moment, though, they don’t get any bigger.