The Yankees Aren't The Only A.L. East Team With Injuries

    I know most of the Yankees fans out there are blaming their awful team's record on their many injuries, but to me and to everyone else it really is a lot of B.S. Don't even try to tell anyone that they have had more injuries than the Red Sox or even the Rays. Plus when you have a $200+ million salary for your roster, you really should have no excuses. The only excuse should be that you suck. Let's not even kid ourselves now, but the Yankees SUCK.

    Let's only talk about the injured players for these three A.L. East teams; Rays, Red Sox, and Yankees. I'll just name the players for each team that have been placed on the D.L. The Rays have lost at some point Carl Crawford, Dioneer Navaro, Matt Garza, Cliff Floyd, Jason Bartlett, Willy Aybar, Evan Longoria, Troy Percival, Scott Kazmir, and Rocco Baldelli. For the Red Sox; Mike Lowell (twice), Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett, Jacoby Ellsbury, Mike Timlin, Tim Wakefield, Julio Lugo, Sean Casey, Bartolo Colon,  David Aardsma, Alex Cora, Curt Schilling, David Ortiz, and J.D. Drew have all been injured. The Lowly Yankees injured players are Jorge Posada, Chien-Ming Wang, Carl Pavano, Jose Molina, Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon, Joba Chamberlain, Alex Rodriguez, Wilson Betemit, Andy Pettite, and some other no-name #4 or #5 starting pitchers that wouldn't make the Rays or Red Sox.

    First we will take a closer look at the Rays injuries. Obviously their two biggest injuries this year are Evan Longoria and Scott Kazmir. Evan Longoria was well on his way to Rookie of the Year and carrying this team's offense on his shoulders. It wasn't just his hitting it was dirt dog mentality and his gold-gloved caliber defense. Longoria was one of the guys in that lineup who you didn't want to see when men on base or the game on the line. The record the Rays have now is remarkable but just imagine if Scott Kazmir had been pitching for the first month. They also lost another co-ace for some time with Matt Garza. Another two big names the Rays have lost are Carl Crawford and Troy Percival. Grant it Crawford is by no means having a great year, but he is still a great defender in left field and is always a threat on the base paths. The other is their closer Troy Percival who is no question this team's leader and one of the main reasons this team is where they are. He is a solid closer with plenty of top quality relievers in the league so in terms of performance he isn't that big of loss because of the quality of their depth but in the clubhouse he is the leader undoubtedly. The Rays have easily had their fair share of injuries but they have had the depth to recover from it, and this team will be very hard to beat and for the Red Sox to pass them.

    Now let's look at the Boston Red Sox. This team has had only one starter not placed on the D.L. this year and that is cancer hero Jon Lester. Every other pitcher has been on the D.L.: Josh Beckett, Tim Wakefield, Daisuke Matsuzaka, ex-Clay Buchholz, and Bartolo Colon. Most teams that have had that many injuries to a starting rotation are talking about staying above .500 right now not winning the A.L. East. Again Josh Beckett had his start moved back so it looks like he could be headed to the D.L. again. To position players they have had three prominent players on the D.L.; David Ortiz, Mike Lowell and J.D. Drew. David Ortiz was on it the longest and he is no question the heart, soul, and smile of this team. There was no way to replace him but somehow the Red Sox stayed afloat for his six-week absence. Then there is current World Series M.V.P. Mike Lowell who has been on there twice. He is a huge part of this offense and he is always counted on for his offense and his exceptional defense at third base, but the Red Sox played good baseball without him too. Then there is J.D. Drew who carried this team during Big Papi's absence. He has been everything he wasn't in his first season which is a good thing. Even with all these injuries the Red Sox still seem poised to make the playoffs and defend their ring.

    Finally let's take a look at the complaining people from New York. No question they have had their share of injuries and they arguably have had it worse than the Red Sox and the Rays. Mainly because of the injuries to Wang and Posada. I am not even going to get into the injuries of the Yankees because I am going to talk about why they shouldn't even be complaining. First the amount of money they spend on players they should have done a better job than a bench that consists of Wilson Betemit, Cody Ransom, and Brett Gardner. Hell, the Rays have a better bench and the left side of the Yankees infield makes more than their whole team. Second of all, whose idea was it to give that type of contract to a 36-year old Catcher. The injury to Posada was almost like the baseball gods telling the Yankees they are "idiots". With their rotation you knew there were going to be problems when they had to rely on three pitchers that had never thrown 100 innings in a season in the majors and ex-HGH user Andy Pettite. Let's be honest you are almost stupid not to realize that this wasn't coming.

    That's it, I don't want to here anymore complaining about the injuries to the Yankees before you take a look at the rest of the injuries in the A.L. East, your idiot owner, and the checks he writes out to those players and then think to yourself, "he couldn't even had gotten us a reliable bench player or JOHAN SANTA."