Yankees feeling healthy, confident as they begin quest for World Series

The hunger is real.

But, when it comes to winning the World Series title that has eluded the Yankees since 2009, that’s nothing new.

It started with the seven-game setback in the 2017 ALCS to the Astros, which represented Joe Girardi’s final series as Yankees manager. Then came three straight October disappointments under Aaron Boone, who enters his fourth season in the dugout with perhaps the best club he’s had with which to end the championship – and World Series appearance – drought.

"We understand we’re a talented team, but we also understand we haven’t done anything yet," Boone said Monday afternoon after the Yankees concluded a mostly successful Grapefruit League season with a 5-2 loss to the Tigers at Steinbrenner Field, mostly successful because the club by and large sidestepped the injury landmines that have torpedoed them in the past. "We hope that we’ve started to lay a foundation to be a championship club. It’s a lot of guys that have, in a lot of cases, been here now for a few years and experienced a lot of highs of playoff success, playoff failures and disappointing ends to the season. We’ve gone through a lot together as a team and we’ve added to the mix that we feel can be ingredients to help us get us over the hump. I’ve felt this way the last couple years: it’s a very hungry group. We want to kick that door in in the worst kind of way. I think the fans will see that."

The Yankees, who open the regular season Thursday at the Stadium against the Blue Jays, didn’t get out of the spring completely unscathed, of course. But given how some of their past spring trainings – and regular seasons – have gone in the injury department, they came out relatively healthy.

Luke Voit was slated to undergo surgery Monday night to repair a partially torn meniscus in his left knee that will keep him out for at least a month, and lefty Justin Wilson will start the season on the injured list with left shoulder tightness, though the veteran isn’t expected to miss much more than a week or so. The most significant loss is setup man Zack Britton, who underwent surgery in mid-March to remove a bone chip in left elbow and isn’t expected to be back until June at the earliest. Still, the Yankees avoided the kind of injuries that can derail a season before it starts.

As general manager Brian Cashman said Monday: "We leave Tampa, I think, in pretty good shape. Not with everybody we want to leave with, but that’s true of every [team] in any camp, and we’re excited to start the major league season."

One the clubhouse is eager to embark upon.

"I think we've been ready for quite a while now," Aaron Judge said a few days before spring training ended.

Judge is among a small core of Yankees who have endured each and every teary-eyed clubhouse scene the past four Octobers as the franchise fell short in its pursuit to get to the World Series. After the loss to Houston in 2017 came a four-game defeat to the Red Sox in the 2018 ALDS, a six-game loss to the Astros in the 2019 ALCS, then a five-game setback to the despised Rays in the 2020 ALDS.

"I’m as fired up as ever," Judge said.

Veteran Brett Gardner - who like Judge was present in all of those losing clubhouses and, at 37, is also the last remaining Yankee from the ’09 championship club – said Monday "it’s been way too long" since the Bombers have been on October’s biggest stage.

"Obviously, we’ve put a lot of work in and we’ve come up just short the last few years," Gardner said. "But I do feel like we’ve got a really, really good team. I like our chances."