Sometimes, in the risky business of running a major league baseball team, you’ve just got to say, “What the f–k?”
And when general manager Brian Cashman did not, allowing Wednesday’s trade deadline to pass without adding a single player to the big-league roster, you had better believe the players in his team’s clubhouse sure did, at least privately.
There were brave public faces and braver public words from the men in Pinstripes following the Yankees’ 7-5 victory over the Diamondbacks in The Bronx during which Zack Greinke pitched five innings of two-run, two-hit ball before his trade to the Astros that was apparently consummated during a 36-minute rain delay in the middle of the sixth.
Of course there were those declarations. Zack Britton, who pitched a perfect eighth inning as one of six relievers to follow Masahiro Tanaka, was casually defiant in proclaiming that, “If we play to our potential, we’re better than every team.
“We are who we are now. I think we’re good enough to win the World Series.”
Tanaka, who left with a 2-0 lead with two on and none out in the fifth after laboring through a 37-pitch fourth inning, talked about needing to, “Just go out and do what we need to do. That’s the bottom line.”
But the bottom line following this trade deadline is the front office was unable to provide a flawed contender with help to cross the finish line. Yes, the Yankees have displayed more than admirable resolve this year in working through injuries to core players.
When a team is in first place with a 10-game lead in the loss column on Aug. 1 despite the fact 22 players (including Jacoby Ellsbury) have made a combined 27 trips to the injured list, that speaks to the volume of talent and depth Cashman had amassed prior to 4 p.m. on Wednesday.
And, yes, it is most certainly true that if Luis Severino and Dellin Betances are able to return from injuries and re-injuries that have sidelined both power pitchers all season and contribute in meaningful fashion, that would constitute a major upgrade to a staff that’s wheezing its way through the summer.
The failure to add arms to the race is not just about the inability to land an ace to front a headless rotation. It is about the failure to provide support when it seems that as many as six pitchers may be necessary per game to nail down victories.
It is about much more than trying to match up in October with the Astros’ Big Three of Justin Verlander, Greinke and Gerrit Cole. It is immediately about getting through the Red Sox when they come to the Stadium for four games this weekend. It is about navigating the final 54 games and approximately 500 innings of the regular season without tumbling out of first place into dreaded wild-card territory.
It is about this group of pitchers being much, much better the rest of the way than they have been through the fortnight. That is what Britton, who referenced his experience with the Orioles in 2014, when Baltimore swept Detroit in the division series while facing Verlander, Max Scherzer and David Price, said, too.
“We need to pitch better, hit better and play better defense than we have the last few weeks,” he said. “The talent to win the World Series is here.”
Maybe. But Wednesday’s inactivity seems less a show of support and confidence in this group than a display of risk-aversion from a front office with a reluctance to gamble on pitchers, and perhaps with good reason, given the volatility of the position.
But still. The last couple of weeks have represented a soundless cry for help that was not answered by management. No one other than those in the inner sanctum knows exactly why following a Cashman press conference that was obviously absent specifics, but it is impossible to believe the players don’t have questions of their own.
“Nothing changes,” Aaron Boone said. “Looking around the room, knowing that we’ve got everything we need to be a championship club. That doesn’t change.
“We know we can beat anyone. You know, nothing changes there.”
Nothing changed on Wednesday.
That’s the point.