Monday, March 27, 2006
Ouch. My Wang
Chien-Ming Wang took a ball off his shin/knee yesterday, and it may cause him to miss his next start. Amazingly, the Yankees could start the season with Jaret Wright in the starting rotation.
Wang was diagnosed with a contusion on his right knee and taken to St. Joseph’s hospital in Tampa for precautionary X-rays, which came back negative.
“You could see the discoloration on the kneecap,” said manager Joe Torre, “but everything is normal.”
It doesn’t sound that bad, and Wang hopes to make his next start.
The Yankees beat Detroit 9-8 in happier news. Johnny Damon was back in CF, and went 2 for 4. The Yankees confirmed that they are still stupid by re-assigning Kevin Thompson and Kevin Reese in order to keep a worse player on the team in Bubba Crosby. I’m still holding out hope that they can ship Bubba to the Marlins for a minor league arm or something to free up a roster spot.
Let’s hope Bernie Williams finds the fountain of youth, because it looks like Torre is making him the starting DH. Like Larry, I think Bernie can bounce back a bit, perhaps to his 2003 and 2004 levels.
Detroit released Carlos Peña, who was once Baseball Prospectus’s top prospect. My first thought was the Yankees should consider him, but I checked his defensive numbers and he was about -13 last season. He’s still an above-average hitter and is young enough that he could improve, but given the paucity of roster wiggle room the Yankees have now, he’s a bad fit. If he’d be willing to go to Columbus I’d sign him, but I would imagine someone can offer him a spot in the bigs. If Giambi goes down, I’m not sure the team can afford to run Andy Phillips out there every day.
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