When the Yankees released their Division Series roster on Tuesday morning, there were some immediate surprises.
DJ LeMahieu, the team’s second-best position player during the regular season, couldn’t overcome his toe injury and prove that he was healthy enough to be trusted in postseason games. LeMahieu’s injury was known about, though.
Scott Effross — the reliever that the Yankees traded fairly promising pitching prospect Hayden Wesneski to acquire — was revealed to have a very serious injury the morning that his first postseason run was set to begin. Effross needs Tommy John surgery, rocking a Yankees’ bullpen that used his services as recently as Oct. 3.
“It’s a huge loss. I feel terrible for him,” manager Aaron Boone said. “He’s kind of heartbroken over it. It’s a blow. Scotty came over here and pitched really well. I think he was going to have a really big role for us in our bullpen, but now we’ve just got to kind of support him and get him right.
“Somebody else has to pick up that slack.”
Effross came to the dais after Boone, an air of noticeable sadness hanging over him. He, understandably, did not seem to be in a talking mood.
“Obviously I’m very disappointed and frustrated,” Effross told the huge room of reporters. “But it’s baseball. These things happen. I’m just kind of disappointed I won’t be able to go out there and help the team.”
Boone reported that Effross first felt off after pitching against the Orioles on Sept. 30. That was a scoreless outing with two strikeouts, so the results didn’t indicate anything was wrong, but after pitching again against the Rangers, the dominoes started falling.
“We pitched him in Texas and he felt good, sharp,” Boone said. “And then in his live BP on Friday, he didn’t recover the next day and there was some concern there. So we had the MRI, and sure enough, we found out over the weekend [that he’d need surgery].”
Effross said the news that his ulnar collateral ligament — the Tommy John one — was torn was “kind of shocking”, as he thought it was just a case of the grind catching up to him.
“It was just mild soreness, I thought. Just kind of end-of-the-year, normal soreness,” Effross said of the feeling after that live batting practice on Friday. “Really since then, it just kind of stayed and lingered. Really no specific event kind of triggered it. We thought we were staying on top of it.”
Unfortunately for everyone involved, they couldn’t stay on top of it enough to avoid every pitcher’s worst nightmare. The timetable for recovery is typically 12-18 months, likely knocking Effross out for next season as well.
“I want to get out there as safely and as soon as possible,” Effross said. “I know it will take some time and I trust the training staff here to kind of help me with that.”
NEXT MAN UP
With the injury to Effross, plus all the other questions about the Yankees’ bullpen, starting pitcher Jameson Taillon will be asked to shift roles and potentially get major outs in the late innings.
“I think the goal would be to get me a clean inning,” Taillon said. “But I’m also not afraid to come in with runners on. I’ll do whatever.”
For a starting pitcher, getting ready to pitch as a reliever can feel like living on another planet. Rather than having all day to prepare for a start, relievers are sometimes asked to enter a game after about three minutes of warm up tosses. Boone was asked if that massive change could rattle Taillon, who has never entered an MLB game out of the bullpen.
“Yeah, that’s something I’ve talked to him about,” Boone said. “He feels like he can get ready like a normal reliever. He’ll prepare himself all game long by putting himself in position to stay ready.”
“At the end of the day, it’s still just making pitches,” Taillon said. “[I’m] changing a few things routine wise, but also trying to keep as much the same as I can.”
There’s also some nasty weather in the forecast for Thursday, which is when Game 2 would happen. If that postpones the game or its first pitch, the Yankees are prepared to alter things. The manager also reminded reporters that the key to avoiding any sort of disaster is just having Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes Jr. pitch deep into their games.
TOO LONG OF A LAY OFF?
The Yankees earned a first-round bye by grabbing the American League’s second seed. Cleveland had the tension of a best-of-three Wild Card series, but that also got them in a rhythm that the Yankees were literally incapable of finding while they were idle.
“I like the fact that we were able to give a lot of our guys rest and get them off their feet,” Boone began. “I also like that they were able to get a lot of live reps. I feel like we were able to stay as sharp as possible while also getting some rest.”
He then acknowledged what many people were thinking, which is the downside of sitting around while the Guardians already got a taste of the postseason adrenaline.
“What you don’t like is, obviously, in an everyday sport, just the unknown of being off five days. But you know, sign me up for that. That means we got to skip a series. If you told me, you have to take three weeks off but you’re in the World Series, you’d sign up for that, too.”
