TAMPA — Yankees fans are used to seeing David Robertson walk onto the mound in the eighth inning. You could make the argument that he is the third most important pitcher on the team behind CC Sabathia and Mariano Rivera.
So when he came out of the clubhouse double doors at Steinbrenner Field on crutches with a walking boot on his right foot late yesterday morning, it was a startling sight.
This day was a not-so gentle reminder that nothing is guaranteed in major league baseball. One slip and fall can change everything. And, yes, you can never have too much pitching.
Rafael Soriano, come on down.
Robertson was simply carrying two empty boxes, one inside the other, out to a recycling bin, down a flight of stairs at his home Wednesday night in St. Petersburg when he made a misstep and tumbled to the ground, suffering a “mid-foot sprain.’’
He referred to it as “clumsy’’ accident. The first round of tests, including an MRI, “concerned’’ the Yankees so much that Robertson was sent back to the hospital for a second round of tests. The setup man should have been making his second outing of the spring yesterday, but now could be out for quite awhile.
Test results were sent back to New York to be evaluated by team physician Dr. Christopher Ahmad and foot specialist Dr. Justin Greisberg. The Yankees will release further information today. It could be quite the setback for the Yankees, whose bullpen has been the strength of the team.
Players come up with weird injuries all the time. When I covered the Padres reliever Larry Andersen, who is now a broadcaster for the Phillies, managed to hurt himself getting out of his Jacuzzi at home, straining a muscle in his chest. He called it a “Jacuzzi-tusion.’’
Another Padre, the late Chris Brown, slept on his eyelid “funny,’’ which knocked him out of action. As for this strange injury, Robertson said, “I just misjudged one step and caught it funny and just kind of rolled under me.’’
He said this was no made-up story.
“I can tell you right now, it’s the truth,” Robertson said. “My wife was like, ‘What are you doing down there?’ She saw me laying there, holding my foot. I was like, ‘I fell.’ She was like, ‘Are you serious?’ ’’
He joked that his wife, Erin, was not chasing him down the stairs, “She wasn’t there with the foot in my back.’’
Robertson was already being ridiculed by Rivera.
“I don’t know how it happened,’’ Robertson said. “I already had Mo wear me out about it.’’
The house can be a dangerous place for ballplayers. SNY broadcaster and former pitcher Bob Ojeda once had a nasty run-in with electric hedge clippers. Pitcher Adam Eaton jabbed himself in the belly with a pocket knife trying to open a DVD package. Another pitcher John Smoltz, according to legend, burned himself ironing his shirt, while he was still wearing it.
Boxes can be especially troublesome for pitchers, even when they are empty as in the case with Robertson. Joel Zumaya, who continues to have all kind of arm problems with the Twins, separated his shoulder after a heavy box fell on him as he was trying to salvage items in his parents’ attic as a California wildfire was approaching.
In baseball, you just never know where the next injury is going to come from and that is why the most important aspect of spring training is always the same — come out of it healthy. To lose a player to injury is never good. To lose a player to an off-the-field injury is much harder to swallow.
The Yankees can only hope they can laugh about this injury in a few weeks, but foot injuries to pitchers are particularly scary because any foot injury could alter a throwing motion and that could cause serious arm and shoulder damage as the Yankees learned with Chien-Ming Wang.
Safe at home has a whole new meaning today.