Luis Severino's season-ending elbow injury is a big blow to the Yankees, but it's nothing they can't overcome, WFAN's Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti said Wednesday.
The Yankees announced Tuesday that Severino will undergo Tommy John surgery after tests revealed a partial tear in the ulnar collateral ligament in the pitcher's right, throwing elbow.
"I don't think it's devastating for a couple of reasons: One, oh, by the way, they signed Gerrit Cole in the offseason, so that helps matters; and two, this is a team that overcame injuries last year better than any baseball team I've ever seen," Giannotti said on the "Boomer and Gio" show.
"They'll be fine," Esiason said. "(General manager) Brian Cashman will figure this out. He'll pick somebody up that we never heard of and throw him into the middle of the pitching lineup. And at the end of the day, they're still going to get (Domingo) German back, they're still going to get (James) Paxton back. These are normal setbacks that all these teams have."
But the loss of Severino is nevertheless disheartening for a Yankees team with World Series expectations.
"It's just really disappointing because Severino back in 2018 was on the path to stardom," Giannotti said. "His first half was incredible. Second half, not so much. Then he had that miserable playoff experience, where there's questions about whether he knew when the game started or not and tippings of pitchings. And then he comes back with an injury in 2019. Then shows some flashes, though, when he comes back. And part of the excitement over the Yankees' rotation -- a big part of it -- was you're going to get a full year of a healthy Severino to add to this rotation in addition to the addition of Gerrit Cole.
"So that's what's really disappointing about it," Gio continued. "Do I think that this team is sunk in 2020 'cause Severino got hurt? Absolutely not. But when you were dreaming about how good the Yankees could be in 2020, Luis Severino being healthy and getting back to that dominant 2018 first-half form was a talking point, and now he's gone for a long time."
Severino first complained about the discomfort in his arm during last year's American League Championship Series. Giannotti wonders why the Yankees didn't dig deeper then into what was bothering the pitcher.
"If he was feeling this (in) October, into the offseason and you had ... all sorts of MRIs and CT scans and finally the dye MRI -- whatever that is -- found it and now he needs Tommy John surgery, why couldn't you have done that months ago?" Gio asked. "That's the big problem I have."
To listen to the open from Wednesday's "Boomer and Gio" show, in which the guys also discuss the Rangers' overtime win over the Islanders, click on the audio player above.
