Oh Crud

Yankee Leftfielder Hideki Matsui broke his wrist today. It ended his streak of games, but at the same time, it also put a big dent into the Yankee lineup, especially at a time when Gary Sheffield is out with an injured wrist.

NEW YORK -- Hideki Matsui will not be in left field for approximately three months, possibly longer. That much the Yankees know.
What they don't know is who will be out there on a daily basis.

New York lost its most reliable player on Thursday night, as Matsui broke his left wrist while attempting a sliding catch in the first inning. With Matsui expected to miss at least three months, manager Joe Torre must now figure out who will play left field for his team.

"Everybody is going to have to do a little something extra, play the game the way we know how," Torre said. "We're not going to be sitting around saying 'What if,' because that's not what we do. We're going to rely on finding other ways to win games."

"It's a tough loss for us, no doubt about it," said general manager Brian Cashman. "He's a special one, but you move forward, because the schedule won't stop for you. We have a lot of talent here, so everybody will have to step up as we move forward."

Melky Cabrera, who was called up earlier this week to replace Gary Sheffield -- who is on the 15-day disabled list with a left wrist injury of his own -- will likely man one of the corner spots, at least until Sheffield returns.

Bernie Williams and Bubba Crosby will also see significant playing time, though it is unclear how Torre plans to use the three players in a rotation.

"We have to take it day by day," Torre said. "Cabrera will play most of the time; Bernie will DH a lot of the time and play some outfield, also. Bubba has certainly given us a reason to play him; he does a lot of good things out there."

Crosby started in right field on Thursday, moving to left when Matsui was injured. Williams came off the bench to play right field.

"To have a guy like Hideki out, it's tough," Crosby said. "You have to stop, say, 'These are the guys we have,' and deal with it. Hopefully we'll get Sheff back soon, but until then, we'll do what we have to do."

"Some role players will have to step up a little bit," Torre said. "We're going to have to dig in and go get 'em."

The Yankees plan to recall outfielder Kevin Reese from Triple-A Columbus on Friday to take Matsui's roster spot, but Cashman said that Reese would be a bench player for New York.

For now, Cashman said he has no plans to pursue a player via trade to replace Matsui, choosing instead to see what the organization's system can provide.

"We want to assess what we have first," Cashman said. "If you go to the trade market, you'll have to spend from your system. Let's see what we have first.

"We feel we have a lot of guys down there that can offer us something from the Minor Leagues," the GM added. "We tell guys in Spring Training, 'The Derek Jeters and A-Rods of the world are going to be looking for you to help when help is needed. Be ready when your name is called.' Some people are going to get their names called here."

Should the Yankees look to acquire a player from another team, names such as Alfonso Soriano, Torii Hunter, Bobby Abreu and Shannon Stewart are sure to pop up.

"We want to make sure we don't have the answer here," Cashman said. "We had a number of young players step up for us last year, so let's find out first and foremost in-house if we don't have people capable of helping us fill holes."

Tough on the Yanks. Just tough all around on the Yanks.
I don't like the idea of Bernie stepping into LF. It's bad enough that Bernie is getting starts in RF while Sheff is out. That is not going to work. So it has to be Bubba, meaning they call up Kevine Reese to be the 5th Outfielder in an OF crew consisting of: Johnny Damon (CF), Melky Cabrera (RF temp), Bubba Crosby(LF), Bernie, & Kevin Reese.

The man on the spot in all of this is Melky Cabrera who was brought up only a couple of days ago to replace Sheffield.
Will Melky hit? Eventually, yes, but will he hit enough in the upcoming 3months while Hideki is out? Here are a couple of ZiPS Projections (which is always pessimistc on Yankees for some reason) to ponder:

M. Cabrera: .269/.310/.367
K. Reese: .263/.330/.406

*Ugh*.
This reminds me of three years ago, when Jeter went down on the first day of the season in 2003 (thanks to Ken 'Hustle' Huckaby). The Yankee brass brought up 'propsect' Erick Almonte, who did passably okay, but not great. In fact it was a little painful to watch.
I don't think Melky Cabrera is quite like Almonte, but it is curious this is the second time he has:
1) had a hot start in the minors
2) been called up before his time to fill a need at the big league level.
This year he has posted: at Columbus .385/.430/.566 That's an OPS of .996 in over 130 ABs.
Is Melky Cabrera ready for the big time in the way that Cano and Wang were last year?
He'd better be, because if he's not, it's going to be a search for trade options and it would really suck to give up Philip Hughes or Eric Duncan or Marcos Vechionacci for Alfonso Soriano.

...Then there's this thing that's a double whammy for me: Matsui was my 7th Keeper player in my fantasy league. I'm not exactly sure who I'm going to use to replace him.