The Yankees were supposed to introduce Fenway Park to the Martian this week, giving Jasson Dominguez his first taste of the ancient rivalry while showing the Red Sox their newest weapon -- one they anticipated would be doing damage on Jersey Street for the next decade or so.
Instead, Dominguez is headed for Tommy John surgery and Estevan Florial was in centerfield for Monday night's series opener. The psychological whiplash from that sentence alone is difficult to fully comprehend for these Yankees, a team that has excelled at only two things this season: stacking the IL and self-sabotage.
Dominguez, only 20, should be fine eventually. Going in for a UCL repair is not quite as routine as a root canal, but the timetable for position players keeps shrinking, with Bryce Harper returning to the Phillies' lineup at DH this season in a record 160 days since his own procedure. That's slightly more than five months, and nearly half the 9-10 month prognosis typically given in these situations.
The real concern here is for the Yankees, who went from having their 21st century Mickey Mantle ready to go for next year's Opening Day to now looking for another centerfielder, or at least a placeholder until June. Considering that Florial was called up Monday to play there speaks to the gravity of that immediate problem.
We'll just assume that the Yankees are serious about making a run at the AL East title in 2024 -- something they were not for most of this year. It's a small sample size, but Dominguez quickly became the antidote for the aging, slow, feeble vibe that had swallowed this franchise. Suddenly, the Yankees had a switch hitter with power to stick in the No. 3 spot, a run-producer to give some protection to Aaron Judge.
Rarely have the Yankees' fortunes hinged on someone who wasn't in Triple-A long enough to do his laundry, then had only eight major-league games under his belt. But Dominguez earned the Martian nickname due to his out-of-this-world talent, and watching the way he rapidly checked boxes at this level made it easy for the Yankees to pencil him into their imagined 2024 lineup.
Dominguez raked a pair of homers during his debut weekend at Minute Maid Park, helping the Yankees sweep the defending champs in their own building for the first time since 2013. Once he got to the Bronx, Dominguez kept hitting, with two more home runs that gave him four in his first seven games, the youngest player since 1901 to accomplish such a feat.
In retrospect, Dominguez still managed to put on that show at Yankee Stadium with the damaged UCL, which makes you wonder what he's capable of with a fully functional right arm. Dominguez kept playing through the discomfort -- he's unsure of the exact moment when the injury occurred -- until it was not possible to do so, a point he reached during indoor batting practice before Sunday's game.
The impact on this season, obviously, is negligible. The Yankees remain mathematically alive, the odds down to a sliver of a percentage point, but the Martian's presence actually fueled the illusion of a long-shot wild-card run. They had won five straight since his call-up, trimming the wild-card deficit to 6 1/2 games with 24 to play, and that didn't seem like a coincidence.
Losing three of the next four, however, exposed the Yankees' brief resurgence to be nothing more than a mirage, relegating September to an extended audition for 2024 job-seekers. Dominguez was acing his tryout, and this month figured to be a key for his development, a running start for spring training next February. Now the focus is going to be on his rehab instead, and the Yankees aren't looking for Dominguez to break any records like Harper's effort to hustle back. With their lengthy list of medical mishaps, the Yankees should be methodical with Dominguez, a careful approach that will make the wait more excruciating after witnessing his brief but electrifying stay in the Bronx.
"It's about taking care of it now," Boone said after Sunday's game. "It's sports. Unfortunately, you have tough things that happen all the time. This is something that he should completely recover and bounce back from. But in the moment, you're crushed for the kid."
And privately, the Yankees couldn't help but feel sorry for themselves. Another sad-trombone for this gut-punch of a season. Dominguez's rapid adjustment to the majors was giving them one less thing to worry about for 2024, along with maybe finding a backup catcher in fellow rookie Austin Wells. General manager Brian Cashman, who was over in Japan this past week scouting Japanese ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, already has a growing to-do list for this winter. Now he'll be monitoring Dominguez's rehab progress rather than crossing an outfield spot off that agenda.
Dominguez will be back, doing Martian things again. But for the Yankees, a team hurrying to change the current narrative, more patience is something they were hoping to avoid.
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