#Yankees are battle-proven for craziness of 2020 MLB season

Remember the glorious old days when the most a baseball player had to worry about was an ankle sprain, a knee strain, a hamstring pull, a ligament tear, an oblique tweak? Remember, in other words, the glorious Yankees spring and summer of 2019?

Every week brought a fresh wave of visits to the injured list. Every week brought a fresh round of fresh faces and unfamiliar surnames to the lineup. Every now and again the Yankees would have to summon a replacement for a replacement and — bang! — like clockwork that sub would have a moment to inspire good, old-fashioned apoplexy from John Sterling up in the radio booth.

There was a game in mid-May, Angel Stadium at Anaheim, where DJ LeMahieu — 15 minutes after so much hand-wringing about where the Yankees would shoehorn him in the lineup — batted leadoff. Luke Voit — nobody’s idea of a second-place hitter — hit second. Brett Gardner, who has spent the bulk of his career hitting either first or ninth, hit third. Gleyber Torres, hitting cleanup, actually looked the part. The bottom five-ninths of the lineup read thusly:

5. Mike Ford (replaced after three at-bats — and one home run — by Gio Urshela).

6. Mike Tauchman.

7. Austin Romine.

8. Thairo Estrada.

9. Tyler Wade.

And the Yankees won, 5-4. Domingo German got the victory. Luis Cessa pitched a lockdown eighth. Zack Britton got the save. Not exactly the way anyone in the organization had drawn it up in February, but that was exactly the blueprint they would follow through the summer and into the fall, a next-man-up guide to 103 wins that sometimes seemed like the Yankees were doing it with mirrors.

“I hope,” Aaron Boone said Monday, “that on some level the experiences we’ve gone through have paved the way for us for whatever we’ll face this year.”

Look, there is no real way to handicap what a 60-game baseball season is going to look like, or feel like …

(Mandatory disclaimer here: IF there is a season.)

… because we’ve never done it before, at least not in this century, or the last. If anyone has time on their hands and can locate any members of the 1873 Boston Red Stockings (43-16, good for first place in the old National Association) or the ’77 Red Stockings (42-18 in the National League) … well, by all means, you know where to find me.

But in the context of baseball we’ve known and understood the last 125 or so years? We have zero idea. Maybe a clueless and young team like the Orioles really can ride a what-the-hell wave for 60 games. Maybe an ultra-smart operation like the Rays has an advantage. Maybe a super-power like the Dodgers can overwhelm the field.

The Yankees, of course, have enough talent if you want to project the Dodgers method onto them, especially since they seem reasonably healthy now. But they also have the experience of surviving a year when just about everything that could go wrong DID go wrong. It feels like that’s a nice line to have on your résumé in 2020.

“This year a whole different ballgame, a whole different series of events, adversity we couldn’t even imagine,” Boone said. “I do feel as much as anyone can be we are equipped to deal with it, and we’ll face it and hopefully as a club we can handle it really well.”

Urshela became the face of what the Yankees were in 2019, and who they were. He hit .314 across 422 at-bats, which was only 81 points higher than he’d ever hit in the big leagues before, and played a sparkling third base, and became an essential part of the team’s fabric — so much that the 2018 Rookie of the Year runner-up, Miguel Andujar, needed to find a new home on the diamond.

“We have to pay attention to details,” Urshela said. “We have to take care of teammates and family too, pay attention and trying to stay healthy.”

Maybe that won’t much matter once the games start for real …

(Public service announcement: IF they start for real.)

… and maybe the Yankees simply won’t be able to adapt to the 2020 craziness as well as they did to the 2019 zaniness (and maybe they won’t need to). Until proven otherwise, though, they are a team that best knows how to adjust on the fly. No matter what the fly is.