You know things haven't been going the Yankees' way this year when their general manager is making an announcement about another injured regular with his leg in a gigantic cast of its own.
Mark Teixeira left the United States World Baseball Classic team on Tuesday to return to New York for further tests on his right wrist. He hurt it while taking batting practice and the initial diagnosis is a strain, although the team has expressed concern that there could be a more serious injury lurking in there.
Teixeira will be out at least two weeks, but you can bet that he'll be out even longer if it seems like his wrist is slow coming around. Teixeira already gets off to the slowest starts this side of a turtle colony so you hardly need to add something else to the mix that could limit his ability to hit the ground running when April rolls around.
That's doubly true this year as the Yankees try to get themselves out of the gate alertly without Curtis Granderson and Alex Rodriguez, while also hoping that Derek Jeter is able to perform at a high level after breaking his ankle. If Teixeira's wrist keeps him out or limits his ability to hit with power, the Yankee lineup is suddenly looking as toothless as a newborn baby.
And that's before even getting to the fact that there isn't an obvious replacement for Teixeira in the lineup if he can't play. Juan Rivera and Dan Johnson have been mentioned, which would be great if you were recruiting for the company softball team but that just doesn't play for a major league team with designs on winning the World Series.
Brian Cashman made that announcement while sporting the cast he earned by breaking his right fibula and ankle while jumping out of a plane as part of a fundraising effort for veterans. We're thrilled that Cashman was supporting such a good cause, but we have to wonder if he wasn't tempting fate by jumping out of that plane a second time.
Cashman's first jump ended without incident, but his second leap left him on the disabled list. It kinda felt like a possible preview for the Yankee season.
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They've danced with being too old, too fragile and too inflexible for years but the parachute has opened every time and allowed them to settle back to Earth without damage. The law of probability says that the parachute's going to fail to open at some point and the Yankees will go splat the way Cashman did earlier in the week.
Teixeira's injury isn't splat, but it does make you wonder just who packed the chutes before the Yankees jumped out of a perfectly good airplane.
Josh Alper is also a writer for Pro Football Talk. You can follow him on Twitter.
