New York Yankees: Injury to Aroldis Chapman could derail hot start

The New York Yankees are off to a great start this season, but a recent injury to Aroldis Chapman could derail that.

A little over a month into the season, the New York Yankees have emerged as one of the top teams in the AL East. Coming into the season, the Yankees were clearly in a rebuild after making some trades at the deadline last season.

Due to the Yankees going with their youth and building their farm system, not too many people expected them to be playing this well in 2017. However, the Yankees have been one of the top teams in the American League, and are proving the doubters wrong.

One of the reasons for the hot start has been because of their pitching staff. Both Michael Pineda and Luis Severino have been pitching well this season, and they were both big question marks coming into the season.

Behind the starting rotation has been one of the best bullpens in baseball. Even though Andrew Miller is in Cleveland, the combination of Aroldis Chapman and Dellin Betances has been a very good one.

Unfortunately, Chapman will be heading to the DL with shoulder inflammation. After being fantastic to start the season, Chapman is coming off of two poor outings against the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros.

As of now, the Yankees have placed Chapman on the 10-day DL and will be checking him out in two weeks. However, this could end up being an injury that costs Chapman nearly a month of action before he is finally back in the majors.

For the Yankees, losing their closer for an extended period of time is not ideal. Luckily, they still do have Betances in the bullpen, but he hasn’t been as good as a closer compared to a set-up man.

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The Chapman injury doesn’t kill the Yankees, but it could certainly derail their hot start to the season. Asking pitchers in the bullpen to change roles doesn’t always go smoothly, and the Yankees could end up missing Chapman badly.