Yankees' David Robertson jokes that he'll 'smoke' Ike Davis with a pitch next year
Relief pitcher David Robertson of the Yankees delivers during the eighth inning against the Baltimore Orioles. (July 6, 2013) Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Can anything more go wrong for the injury-ravaged Yankees? When Yankee reliever David Robertson saw the team's best healthy player, Robinson Cano, take a fastball from Mets phenom Matt Harvey near his right knee in the first inning of Tuesday's All-Star Game, "I was, like, 'Oh, gosh! No!' '' Robertson said.
But Robertson laughed off the suggestion that he immediately could get back at the Mets by plunking Mets' first baseman Ike Davis. The two players were together Wednesday at the Bethpage Black course, serving as co-hosts of a superstorm Sandy benefit golf tournament organized by the Players' Association.
"I'll wait till next year when we play Ike," Robertson said. "I'll smoke him."
Seriously, though, Robertson favored optimism over any sort of revenge in baseball's second half. "Robby's a tough guy and the X-rays were negative," he said. "So I'm hoping he has no problem and is ready to go when we take on Boston Friday.
"I know this weekend is the start of that tough grind we've got coming up. We've got to win some series against Tampa and Boston to have an opportunity to win the AL East. But we're right there where we need to be, we've battled all year."
At 51-44, six games out of first place and three games short in the wild-card race, the Yankees' outlook is precarious, even if marquee names such as Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Curtis Granderson return from various rehabilitations soon.
Robertson acknowledged that many of the roster additions, covering for personnel lost to injury, meant playing with people who had been "strangers" before they arrived. But Robertson -- whose charitable foundation, "High Socks for Hope," aided victims of the 2011 Alabama tornado before his involvement with this Sandy benefit -- tends to prefer a rosy approach.
"It's going to be a tough road for us," he said, "but we've got some power bats coming back to the lineup, got a great pitching staff, got a good group of guys, a good team, and I think that if we play well, we're right there."
