The dream scenario worked something like this for the Yankees:
Derek Jeter would return with a couple of clutch hits and run the bases effortlessly. Andy Pettitte would toy with the Royals’ mostly young lineup, changing speeds, getting futile hacks. And then Mariano Rivera would put a bow on it all yet again.
The Yankees wanted a same-as-it-ever-was matinee as a way to symbolize a finally stabilizing situation.
Except that same as it ever was for the 2013 Yankees is an injured guy getting hurt yet again. Jeter came back yesterday to have both an RBI and an MRI. Does anything sum up this club more?
The Yankees keep waiting for the cavalry, except the cavalry keeps breaking down. They never get whole, they just hit another hole. Strains, sprains and pains — and few gains.
PHOTOS: JETER RETURNS TO YANKEES LINEUP
Jeter already was kind of a pioneer of the setback motif, having re-broken his ankle in spring training, moving his Opening Day due date back until yesterday. Then his right quadriceps tightened and he had to be removed late in what became an 8-4 Yankee victory over the Royals.
He tried to make like it was no big deal, that they MRI hangnails around the overly cautious Yankees. But Jeter would downplay a pick hanging out of his forehead. The reality is he limped badly running out a grounder in the sixth and was removed. He said he expects to play tonight against the Twins.
But why? The Yankees figured out how to sweep four in Minnesota without him. Even assuming this is relatively minor, Jeter should be protected from himself by being told to sit out the weekend and the All-Star break, giving him eight days off to rev for the Red Sox, Fenway Park and the second half.
Pushing an injury is how Jeter broke last year. He kept playing on what initially was a bruised ankle, but game after game — the Chinese Water Torture of baseball — led to an erosion and a fracture during the ALCS.
“I am hoping for the best,” Jeter said.
Which felt right in what the Yankees call Hope Week. But, really, their injury situation has been hopeless this year. Jeter, Curtis Granderson, Mark Teixeira, Francisco Cervelli and Kevin Youkilis all appeared healed, until they weren’t again.
Even Jeter’s return yesterday was about the brittle state of the team. Brett Gardner and Travis Hafner both incurred leg injuries Wednesday night. So the Yankees audibled. Jeter was supposed to DH for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre yesterday, and the Yankees redirected him to The Bronx a day earlier than he was supposed to return.
“In a perfect world [Jeter] would have played in Scranton [yesterday],” manager Joe Girardi said. “But this has not been a perfect world here this year.”
Not close. Yet, the Yankees have managed to stay eight games over .500 and in contention thanks to smoke, mirrors and the AL Central, against whom they are 16-5. But after the Twins, the patsies mainly go away. There are a lot of games against the AL East in the second half. Smoke, mirrors and Luis Cruz is not getting it done.
At some point the cavalry is really going to have to arrive — for good. And, you know what else? The Yankees are going to be as beholden to Jeter, Pettitte and Rivera as ever. This isn’t about nostalgia or the feel-good moment of simply seeing Jeter in his uniform or soaking in Rivera’s final lap. Old-Timers’ Day has come and gone. The Yankees need their twilight guys to remain spotlight men.
Rivera has been mostly brilliant again, but you see how badly this no-margin-for-error version of the Yankees needs him. He has two blown saves, and both sent the team into a weeklong tailspin. Who knows about Jeter, who still has yet to play nine innings in the field at any level this year.
Then there is Pettitte, at 41 the oldest starter in the majors. He hurt his back early in the season and the scary item for him is not that he has broken again like so many Yankees. It is that he swears he feels great, and yet yesterday was the sixth straight game he has permitted at least four runs — one shy of a career-worst.
He won because the Yankees offense roared. But Pettitte looked bad moving on two bunt plays, struck out just one, once more was missing his signature big pitch to escape trouble. Houdini, of all things, has disappeared.
“I’m ready to hang myself is what I’m ready to do,” Pettitte said. “I’m not going to lie to you.”
He shouldn’t do that. For these Yankees, the rope would break and Pettitte would land on two teammates, breaking four legs. This year for this team, Jeter returns and he doesn’t.
The 2013 Yankees, ladies and gents.