The Brewers, Yankees, Tigers, Angels and others are in playoff contention, but their pitching staffs have suffered injuries as the year enters crunch time. How will they adapt to continue their playoff push?
Milwaukee holds a two-game lead in the NL Central over the St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates, but they're going to be without starter Matt Garza for a little while. He was placed in the disabled list last Monday with an oblique strain and it was reported he will likely miss longer than the 15-day DL stint. The team called up Mike Fiers from Triple-A and he pitched eight innings in a 4-1 victory over the Dodgers on Saturday, but can he carry the load moving forward if Garza were to miss significant extra time?
The Yankees' rotation has been decimated by injuries. They lost CC Sabathia and Ivan Nova for the year and Masahiro Tanaka is continuing to rehab his partially torn UCL, but there are no guarantees for a return. Michael Pineda has only made four starts this year, but he'll be returning on Wednesday to fill a vacancy in the rotation left by David Phelps (elbow). The Yankees already made four trades to acquire pitchers (Brandon McCarthy, Chris Capuano, Jeff Francis and Rich Hill) so if there continues to be issues, Brian Cashman won't hesitate to pull the trigger.
The Detroit Tigers placed starter Anibal Sanchez (right pectoral strain) and reliever Joakim Soria (left oblique strain) on the disabled list on Sunday. These are two contributors to the Tigers' staff, but the team can make due for now with three Cy Young Award winners in the rotation (Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and David Price). The bullpen is solid as well, but the Tigers likely wanted Soria to pitch more innings (he's only pitched 4 1/3 innings giving up five earned runs since being acquired from Texas). As of now, Robbie Ray could be in line to fill in for Sanchez and minor leaguers Ian Krol or Justin Miller could take Soria's spot.
Last week the Angels expressed concern over C.J. Wilson's performance as of late (29 earned runs in last six starts) and Tyler Skaggs (who will now miss the season because of Tommy John surgery). Their only consistent starters are Jered Weaver and Garrett Richards, so general manager Jerry DiPoto made it clear he would be searching for a starting pitcher on the waiver wire. The Angels rotation will need to provide them with consistency in the closing weeks of the season if they want to catch the Oakland A's who lead them by four games in the AL West.
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