The New York Yankees made a strange decision with pitcher Domingo Germán Monday night and analyst Jeff Nelson had an even stranger explanation of that decision.
Shortly before their game against the Tampa Bay Rays, the Yankees scratched Germán from his scheduled start, citing armpit soreness. The Yankees called up Jhony Brito from Triple-A to make the start and interestingly, did not put Germán on the injured list to open a roster spot. Not only did they not put Germán on the injured list, but they actually ended up pitching him during the game, despite the sore armpit.
“He couldn’t start because of the pain in his right armpit, but here he is. Domingo Germán is warming up here in the bottom of the fourth inning,” Yankees play-by-play voice Michael Kay said during the broadcast on YES Network.
The bizarre decision-making from Yankees brass had former All-Star reliever and current YES analyst Jeff Nelson trying to figure out what could have caused Germán’s armpit soreness.
“Maybe he shaved wrong.” 🤔 pic.twitter.com/whZIJdAmmt
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 1, 2023
“Maybe he shaved wrong, I don’t know what happened,” Nelson said with confusion.
“Very odd,” Kay added before about 15 seconds of silenced ensued, giving the audience plenty of time to ponder whether Germán injured his armpit while shaving.
“Maybe he shaved wrong” is an interesting instinct to go to after hearing ‘armpit injury.’ While a Major League Baseball pitcher suffering a manscaping injury might sound weird, you can make some sense of it just by going down the long and bizarre list of ways players have hurt themselves in the past.
There was the time Vince Coleman got ran over a by an automatic tarp machine or when Glenallen Hill fell through a glass table while dreaming about being chased by spiders. Yoenis Céspedes broke his ankle trying to sidestep a charging wild boar, and Max Scherzer was bit by one of his dogs while already on the injured list with an oblique strain. That’s just a small sampling from some of the strange injuries MLB players have suffered. A manscaping injury is different, but you could argue it wouldn’t be the strangest.
Nelson didn’t explain whether he thought Germán could have suffered the injury while shaving his armpit or if the Yankees pitcher pulled something in his armpit while reaching to shave another part of his body. Do pitchers shave their armpits? Many baseball players shave their arms to help tape their wrists or possibly to help a pitcher store some sticky stuff, but is there an advantage to a pitcher having less friction in their armpit?
Adding to the Yankees strange decision of scratching Germán from his start only to use him later in the game anyway was the fact that he looked really good. Germán pitched five scoreless innings after his armpit presumably felt better, or maybe even healed from a possible manscaping injury. Unfortunately, Germán’s replacement had already given up five runs and the Yankees went on to lose 5-1.
