Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Giancarlo Stanton is hurt again.
Before the shortened season, things were looking up for Stanton. The layoff gave him plenty of time to heal from offseason injuries, a shortened campaign meant he had a better shot of staying healthy throughout, and he had started the season off strong. It looked like everyone who’d proclaimed “well he ONLY has to stay healthy for 60 games” were on their way to a nice profit…..wrong. Stanton is now sitting on the IL with a minor hamstring strain that is going to sideline him for 3-4 weeks. Knowing Stanton, and knowing the Yankees, I would expect it to be more towards 4, if not longer. We’re venturing into total lost cause territory with Stanton. In his absence, Mike Tauchman immediately becomes startable in all formats and Clint Frazier is going to get yet another opportunity to show he can stick with the big club.
Aaron Judge was pinch hit for in the Yankees’ Tuesday night game, starting speculation that he might be hurt as well. He was seen going to the tunnel, then returning to the dugout later in the game. No report as of yet, so this one might just be a scare for now.
Ronald Acuna missed Tuesday’s game with the Yankees with a sore wrist, and he’s due to be examined by doctors in New York on Wednesday. Brian Snitker hasn’t given us much in terms of comments, but he did say that the wrist was bothering him enough that he couldn’t play Tuesday. We’ll know more later on in the week, but if he was heading to the IL it’d come at the worst possible time, as Acuna is on an absolute tear right now. Even without an IL stint, I’d expect any sort of wrist discomfort to impact Acuna’s power output for a short time, and maybe see him pull back on the bases, since he did hurt the wrist on a slide.
We profiled the White Sox last week and their slew of injuries. Well it’s two steps forward and one step back as both Edwin Encarnacion and Tim Anderson have been activated from the IL, while Leury Garcia is now hitting the shelf with a thumb issue.
A couple of big time closers are running into issue, which seems to be a theme of the season. Ken Giles continues to work back from an elbow/forearm issue and will reportedly have another MRI this week. He hasn’t thrown in two weeks, and the results of this test will certainly determine his timeline for return. It still seems like it’s going to be a while though. Kirby Yates has missed some time with “body soreness” which is an injury usually reserved for out of shape guys after a few too many pickup basketball games. Jayce Tingler said he could have used Yates if needed, but he’s not a lock to get every save chance moving forward. Drew Pomeranz has been lights out out of the pen, and should be owned in most formats at this point.
Madison Bumgarner and Charlie Morton both hit the IL this week after disastrous starts to their seasons. Both guys have seen their velocity drop way off this season, and they’ve been getting shelled. Morton has been diagnosed with shoulder inflammation and Bumgarner has a back issue, but these both look like “get right” stints. Hopefully with some rest and rehab we’ll see some improvement in results. Bumgarner is at least throwing now, but try to watch for any reports you can about his velo. If he can’t ramp that up by 4-5mph by the time he comes back, I don’t expect any better results.
Corey Seager hasn’t played in about a week due to quad and then back issues. The Dodgers look like they’re trying all they can to avoid an IL stint, and it makes sense. Seager is torching the ball right now. He’s done side work all week and fielded grounders yesterday. Hopefully, he can return to the lineup before the weekend, or he might be in real trouble.
Wrapping up with everyone’s favorite, the Astros. George Springer has been held out of the last couple games with a wrist injury. It doesn’t seem to be a huge issue, and Dusty Baker has said Springer is available as a runner in games at this point. This is another guy where the team is clearly looking to avoid an IL push. His issue seems to be closer to resolving itself than Seager’s, and I’d be surprised if he wasn’t in the lineup by Friday at the latest.
Yordan Alvarez and Jose Urquidy are both working themselves back to playing shape after missing the beginning of the season. In updates this week, Dusty Baker said that Yordan Alvarez still needed “20-30” ABs at the alternate site before he thought it’d be time for a return, and that Urquidy would need “a couple weeks” of build up at least if he was going to come back as a starter. Long story short, neither of these guys is that close to returning.
