TAMPA — “Oh, [expletive]!” Mark Teixeira exclaimed Sunday morning, and a tranquil intra-camp game, while the official Yankees team took on the Astros in Kissimmee, turned suddenly serious at the club’s minor-league complex.
Teixeira, the Yankees’ injury-prone first baseman, appeared in agony after taking a pitch to his right kneecap. He knelt a few steps in front of home plate, took himself out of the contest, underwent a very quick examination by a trainer, packed his stuff and limped away as the bottom of the fourth inning continued between Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Double-A Trenton.
Just minutes later, across the street at Steinbrenner Field, Teixeira looked fully healed as he walked toward the team’s clubhouse alongside Brian McCann.
“It’s fine,” Teixeira said. “I was wearing a pad [on the knee].”
Within minutes, the Yankees announced the injury as a “contusion” and said the soon-to-be 35-year-old would not undergo any tests.
We’ll make sure Teixeira is OK on Tuesday, when the Yankees return to work after taking off Monday. But at the least, Teixeira’s scare — on a day he was just looking to get some at-bats and didn’t even play the field — reminded us how quickly and unexpectedly a team’s fortunes can change.
After all, not long before Teixeira got plunked, his general manager Brian Cashman declared, “I think camp has gone as well as we could hope, and we hope that continues the rest of the week, carries us into that home opener, and we can go with the 25 we want to go with.”
Teixeira and his backup Garrett Jones began the day as mere supporting players to the scheduled protagonist Dellin Betances, whose spring-long struggles have become a concern given the increased responsibilities the sophomore is expected to assume in the wake of David Robertson’s departure to the White Sox.
Betances’ 7.11 Grapefruit League ERA didn’t move Sunday, as results from minor-league games don’t count in the official statistics. Yet by registering a shutout inning for Scranton, striking out two and allowing one hit while throwing 14 of his 16 pitches for strikes, the big righty slightly increased his optimism and tempered worries.
“I felt a lot better,” Betances said. “I thought like I was just going out there, trying to execute my pitches instead of thinking about mechanics. Just be aggressive and attack the hitters.”
Cashman disputed the notion Betances’ velocity was down.
“He’s actually averaging a mile higher at this point in the spring than he was last spring,” the GM said. “If it’s apples to apples, then he’s right where he was last year. Obviously, his performance this spring is different than last spring. But the arm strength is not the issue.”
Last season, Betances’ fastball averaged 96.6 miles per hour, as per FanGraphs, and it increased steadily in velocity through the year. On Sunday, his fastball hovered mostly at 93 mph and reached 94 toward the end of his inning. The greater issue, to which Cashman alluded, is that there is an issue, as Betances has lacked command and hasn’t been able to utilize his killer curveball effectively.
He ended his work shift with a few excellent curveballs, getting minor leaguers to flail at balls in the dirt.
“The spin was better,” Betances said. He added: “I’m trying to obviously work on some stuff here and get right before we break.”
That the Yankees still haven’t divulged their late-inning game plan, with Opening Day a week away, underlines how awful Betances has looked most of the time; his lefty counterpart Andrew Miller preceded him on the mound Sunday and picked up four outs, two of them on whiffs.
“You just want to make sure it doesn’t affect the confidence,” Cashman said of Betances. “I’ve been able to confirm at least for myself he’s very confident, which is good.”
For a moment Sunday, it appeared Teixeira might upstage Betances and turn this into a bad day for the Yankees. Make a good camp less good. While the Yankees believe they dodged that bullet, they know that each time they put their players in action presents new opportunities for something to go wrong.