Itt was  difficult to concentrate on the game last night after Mark Teixeira got hit. What happens if he was seriously hurt? Almost immediately, we started talking about it in the game thread. Today, over at PB, Jay Jaffe offers “The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook”:

First Base: While losing Teixeira would have been a major blow to the offense given his current productivity, the Yankees would have no shortage of internal options to cover the position. The most obvious solution would be to move Nick Swisher to first, where he has 256 games (192 starts) of big league experience, and to sally forth with a Chris Dickerson/Andruw Jones platoon in right field, more on which momentarily. Additionally, Jorge Posada, who has 30 games and 16 starts at first, could figure into the picture against righties if his bat continues to show some life. After going 3-for-3 off the bench last night in Teixeira’s stead—including his first two hits of the season against lefties—he’s hitting .260/.374/.351 since May 1, which is certainly slappy but not entirely useless. Eric Chavez, who’s nearing a return to baseball-related activities, could eventually take at-bats against righties as well, and at some point, the Yankees would probably take a look at righty-swinging Jorge Vazquez, who has already mashed 19 homers at Triple-A Scranton while batting a lopsided .280/.326/.564.

…Third Base: The path of least resistance would call for plenty of Nunez and Pena until Chavez is ready. If Joe Girardi smoked what Joe Torre was smoking, the team could spot Russell Martin at the hot corner (his pre-conversion position), which could create some space for Jesus Montero (still hitting a relatively uninspiring .294/.336/.416 at Scranton) to assume some of the catcher duties. Not likely, but not impossible. Another relatively improbable option would involve Brandon Laird, Scranton’s regular third baseman and an object of wintertime fascination around these parts; he’s hitting a disappointing .275/.306/.392 with three homers this year after bopping 25 homers between Trenton and Scranton last year.