When asked about any potential trade deadline moves, Yankees GM Brian Cashman sounded confident in his bullpen and every day lineup.
But Cashman questioned his team’s rotation, despite their recent turnaround during the 10-game winning streak.
“I am not certain quite yet, to be honest,” Cashman said on Sirius/XM’s MLB Network Radio.
“We spent the winter trying to make the rotation a strength. We had some injuries, under-performance early in the year that now are working their way through. Is that a strength? Will it need to be reinforced? I am not ready to make that call quite just yet.”
Cashman made the rotation a priority by acquiring Michael Pineda from the Mariners this offseason for top prospect Jesus Montero, but the young right-hander will miss the entire season because of a shoulder injury. The remaining starters (CC Sabathia, Ivan Nova, Hiroki Kuroda and Freddy Garcia) all struggled with consistency in the early parts of the year. Andy Pettitte helped stabilize the staff when he rejoined the team in mid-May, and they have been lights out the past two times through the rotation as the Yankees have bolted to the top of the AL East.
“I do like this team, it’s one that has a lot of fight in it despite the disappointing losses of Pineda and (Mariano) Rivera, and (Joba) Chamberlain early on in the year,” Cashman said. “I am not ready to do anything just now, though I’ve heard from a few GMs. If you read that we are on somebody right now that would be false, we are not on anybody right now.”
But Cashman sounded more convinced that he does not need to add a reliever:
“Our bullpen had some hits, certainly we lost Mariano Rivera, but it’s given a chance for other people to step up and show what they can do, and they’ve done that so far. I am not sure there’s anything for that to be addressed,” he said.
And on the lineup:
“Our every day players I like. We do expect to Brett Gardner back, so we got some guys stepping up and doing a great job in (Andruw) Jones and (Raul) Ibanez with outfield duty, since they were supposed to both be platoon DHs. The bench has done a fine job. I got to kick the can down the road a little bit to figure out what is real, what is not real, what’s necessary.”