Saturday, May 26, 2007
Bite the Bullet, Johnny
Something tells me that we won't be seeing Johnny Damon patrolling centerfield at Yankee Stadium today. From this morning's Daily News:
Damon said he had pain in both calves and in his right Achilles.
"It hurts not being able to get to the fly balls," Damon said.
"Granted some of those balls were hit pretty hard, but I just couldn't get to them. The damage should not have been as much as it was today.
"The legs felt a little shot all day, but around the fourth or fifth inning (they really started hurting), I just wanted to try go out there and keep going. But that definitely wasn't helping the team."
Damon and Torre said there will be conversations about whether to put him on the disabled list for the first time in his 13-year career.
"It's something we have to reevaluate," Damon said.
Damon's Grandma Moses impersonation in the first two innings last night apparently was not just about getting a bad jump on the ball. The 1st double off Clippard was a rocket, and although Damon could've made the play, I can't say for certain that he should've. The 2nd double on the other hand . . . he didn't get a good jump, he didn't get back fast enough, didn't read the ball well at the end, and did an unnecessary dive/flop onto the turf.
This "I've never been on the DL in 13 years" badge of honor that Damon wears has lost all lustre now. It's one thing if he was lighting the world on fire with his bat, but he isn't. Despite a recent spurt in the Boston series, his offensive production is way off from last year. I know you're not looking for Damon to be a vaunted slugger, but a .366 SLG doesn't cut it; that's a 116-point drop from last year, dragging his OPS to .732, the lowest number of his career since 1997, his 2nd full season in Kansas City.
Just one more conundrum in a season full of "damned if you do/damned if you don't"s for the Yankees.
What do you do? Try and weather the storm with Damon on the bench for a few days, hoping those calves suddenly heal? Or DL him, and resign yourself to the fact that Melky Cabrera is going to be patrolling center for the next 3 weeks?
With the Yankees' season clearly on the brink, it is a risky proposition to just hope that Melky snaps out of his offensive funk. Then again, as a fan, watching Damon grimace, not be 100 percent and reading about his nagging injuries everyday is beyond the point of being tiresome.
The optimist in me thinks that maybe Melky would provide the same type of spark for this team that he did last summer, and DL'ing Damon would work in the team's favor right now. The realist in me is starting to believe that it's not going to make much of a difference one way or the other.
