Beating the system? I think so.

With the news of Astros’ pitcher and the 2019 Cy Young Award Winner, Justin Verlander, coming out that he had right groin surgery on Tuesday it couldn’t have came at a better time for the pitcher. With no baseball being played for at least 8 weeks– earliest start date for the season would be May 10th– Verlander is in fact beating the system. Verlander was already nursing a mild lat strain he suffered earlier in the month and now he will have a substantial amount of time to get his body back to playing shape.

At the age of 37, it might be father time shining through Verlander who has shown that longevity has been one of his many strong suites. With opening day being previously scheduled for March 26th, Verlander would have been cutting it very close being the opening day starter for the ‘Stros with that lat injury, but now with the two month time table, Verlander should be good to go by May 10th, and if not, he will be good around then.

On the other end, you have the New York Yankees. The Yankees cannot seem to find a remedy for the injury bug. It has bit them year after year and this year was starting off in the same rhythm.

First, it was James Paxton who went down February 5th to a surgery called “microscopic lumbar discectomy” which is to remove a  peridiscal cyst. Sounds pretty disgusting but it was terrible timing for the Yankees.

Next was Aaron Judge who had two injuries at first- his shoulder and pectoral- and just from those injuries, Mr. Cashman had this to say: “I don’t see him ready by Opening Day because of the time frame,” and that was said on March 3rd. And then the news came on March 6th to the degree of Judge getting diagnosed with a stress fracture in his first right rib that he was guaranteed a two week rest time and then they were going to follow that up with a CT scan. That injury is very tricky and could require surgery or a lot of rest. Either way, Judge WAS slated to miss a significant amount of time.

Finally, we have the $325 million man, who Derek Jeter gave to the Yankees to win another World Series, Giancarlo Stanton. Stanton played only 18 games last year that equaled to only 59 at bats and three home runs. Not what Yankee fans expected in his second season in the Bronx. He followed that season up with a grade 1 strain in his right calf that was followed up by two weeks of rest. Then on March 3rd, came Brian Cashman letting the world know that he was about  to be out another middle of the lineup threat with his quote saying Stanton playing on opening day was “unrealistic.” So that would have been 2/3 of the outfield down and their number one starter. Not to mention losing Luis Severino to Tommy-John surgery and Aaron Hicks is still recovering from his Tommy John surgery he had back on Halloween of 2019 and might have begun his throwing program last week or this week.

So all in all, the Yankees are down Stanton, Judge, Paxton, Severino, and Hicks. What did they do to make things work? Not sure. Not saying that the Chinese workers in the Chinese lab that the virus “could have came out of” are Yankees fans, but you never know. Crazy that it’s working out like that but crazy things are happening in this world right now. Stay safe and put your future bets in now while you can.

Yesterday, the odds were set at Yankees +400 and the Dodgers were +450. It is going to go down to the wire this year. Let’s just hope they can maybe get a full season in instead of messing up the record books and everything else tied to statistics. Thank you.