Details of the self-inflicted Giancarlo Stanton injury are absolutely infuriating

Giancarlo Stanton’s latest hamstring injury is made even worse for the Yankees when you realize it could have been entirely avoidable.

The only silver lining to Giancarlo Stanton’s appearance on the injured list (10 days) was that it created the space needed for the Yankees to call up Oswald Peraza from AAA. Other than that, it’s a continuation of a season of injuries for the Yankees which includes Harrison Bader, Josh Donaldson, and now Stanton.

Luckily, Bader and Donaldson are on their way back as Stanton hits the list. His injury, a hamstring, will require imaging to assess the severity. It happened late in the team’s Saturday victory.

At first glance, it’s just more bad injury luck for Stanton. But looking back on the injury paints a bleaker picture that this could have been avoided entirely.

Giancarlo Stanton injury appears to have been entirely avoidable

Here’s a look at when the injury happened on Saturday:

Stanton hit a bomb that appeared at first glance to go out. It ended up being a long double to left field, though.

Stanton mosied out of the box thinking the ball was gone but had to accelerate quickly and then slam on the brakes shortly after at second. Somewhere in there, the injury happened. The conclusion to make is easy looking back at this: One might think that had Stanton hustled out of the box straight away, an injury may have been avoided.

The hit was such a big one that it fooled Michael Kay and the stadium operations siren operator, so it’s hard to fault Stanton too much for thinking this one was on its way out.

It also was hit with a 109.7 MPH exit velocity, and went 403 feet according to Statcast. It would have been a home run everywhere except in the Bronx, Colorado, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh.

But this is a fundamental aspect of the game. If we’re going to drag Donaldson for the same thing, we have to expect Stanton to play with the same intensity. Especially when he’s serving as the designated hitter, this is his one job.

He gets a pass because his offense has been great this year, he’s leading the team in RBI. Plus, the Yankees already had a strong lead. There wasn’t much need for urgency.

Those aren’t good excuses, though. And listening to Stanton take accountability for poor, uninspired play in the past, I think he’d agree with me.

Stanton has not been durable, so it’s easy to think that if it wasn’t now, a hamstring tweak would have come just a handful of games later. Regardless, how this one happened really stings.