Injury List
Chien-Ming Wang
Carl Pavano
Mike Mussina
Jeff Karstens
Phil Hughes
... Before the team headed north from their spring training home in Tampa, Chien-Ming Wang, arguably their ace, went down with a hamstring injury. Carl Pavano, who has been on the sidelines with injury virtually from the moment he signed a $39.95m four-year deal, predictably followed Wang to the disabled list. That same day, Mike Mussina joined them on the DL, also with a hamstring injury. Kei Igawa was brought in from Japan to join the starting rotation, but he was demoted to bullpen duty after a couple of poor starts. His replacement, Jeff Karstens, who returned from injury on April 21, suffered a fractured right fibula after being hit by a line drive a little over a week later. Looking to give the team a jolt they brought up the prized, can't miss prospect Phil Hughes from their AAA affiliate. On just his second start the kid was in the seventh inning of a no-hit bid when the injury bug took another bite out of the Pinstripes. Another hamstring victim, Hughes would be out for four to six weeks...
Full story here.
They started the year with Pavano and Igawa in the rotation. Igawa was at best their 5th starter and Pavano simply didn’t have the heart or maturity to pitch. How far did they think that they were going to go with those two? The injury thing was a function of conditioning which is why they erased their strength coach. That said they are getting healthy at a time the Sox are breaking down. Manny has an obligue pull which is a lot worse then they are letting on and Ortiz has a bad shoulder and a knee that needed offseason surgery that never happened. Based on those injuries I would not be surprised if the Sox fade.
If that does happen I expect that Yankee fans will forget that they have been using the injury excuse all year and start yelling “Choke”!!!