Yanks Beat Tigers In Spite of Arsenalesque Injury Crisis

First, the bad news: The Yankees on the Injured List (it's no longer the "Disabled List") now include pitchers CC Sabathia, Luis Severino, Jonathan Loaisiga, Dellin Betances and Ben Heller; backup catcher Kyle Higashioka (meaning that, if anything happens to Gary Sanchez, we're stuck with Austin Romine); starting shortstop Did Gregorius; starting 3rd baseman Miguel Andujar; outfielders Jacoby Ellsbury and Aaron Hicks; and designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton.

To rewrite an old joke, I went to a Yankee game, and an Arsenal match broke out! This looks like Arsenal's annual "injury crisis," and we'd only played 3 games!

To make matters worse, Andujar's injury is a torn labrum in his shoulder. He could be out for the season. Stanton's place on the roster was taken by Clint Frazier, and Andujar's by Tyler Wade. These two guys couldn't hit sand if they fell off a boardwalk!

Clearly, general manager Brian Cashman is not doing his job.

And last night, Domingo German was scheduled to start the opener of a 3-game series against the Detroit Tigers. This could be a long night...

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The good news: Surprise: The Yankee pitching was brilliant.

How many Yankee pitchers does it take to hold the Tigers to 2 hits? Apparently, 5. German went the 1st 5 innings, allowing 1 run on just 1 hit, but 5 walks, which is concerning.

He threw 79 pitches, which means he had at least 2 more innings in him. But Cashman loves him some analytics and some pitch count, and Aaron Boone doesn't have the balls to tell him how fucking stupid this is.

Chad Green pitched a perfect 6th. Zach Britton pitched a scoreless 7th, allowing the only other Tiger hit. Adam Ottavino pitched a scoreless 8th, albeit with 2 walks. Maybe he should've worked on his control, instead of talking trash about Babe Ruth. And Aroldis Chapman pitched a scoreless 9th. None of the relievers allowed a walk.

But it would be just like the 2010-19 Cashman Yankees to have such a nice pitching performance and lose 1-0. Instead, the Yankees got a 2-run home run from Gary Sanchez in the 2nd inning, and a solo homer from Brett Gardner in the 5th, and that was all they needed.

Yankees 3, Tigers 1. WP: German (1-0). SV: Chapman (1). LP: Tyson Ross (0-1).

The series continues tonight. Masahiro Tanaka is scheduled to start against Jordan Zimmerman. The series concludes with an early start tomorrow, 4:05. Matthew Boyd starts for the Tigers, and the Yankees are still undecided. As with the replacements for Stanton and Andujar, we could be looking at the Scranton Shuttle.