Lost in the shuffle of Alex Rodriguez’s dramatic walk-off homerun earlier today was the news that Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui strained a hamstring and could miss up to a week of playing time.

Normally, this news would thrill me to no end, especially with Johnny Damon battling a leg problem of his own and Bobby Abreu questionable after taking a pitch to the knee. Sure, it’s only April, but when you’re in a division and part of a rivalry in which every game counts, the loss of New York’s entire starting outfield for any length of time is encouraging.

One problem: when setting up my fantasy baseball team this season, I resolved to “employ” only players who were born outside of the United States and Latin America. As you can well imagine, there aren’t many outfielders whom apply and even fewer on my team. In fact, as much as I like Jeff Baker and Dave Roberts, Matsui is pretty much the cream of One More Dying Quail’s crop.

Because he was the best offensive player available who fit my criteria, I resolved to draft Matsui first and worry about the fact that he was a Yankee second. I figured that, much like I do with Chien-Ming Wang, it would be easy enough to just root for individual success but team failure. Not so easy, it turns out.

The best-case scenario at this point, at least as far as I’m concerned, is for Matsui to return but Damon’s leg to fall off completely. I think I can live with an outfield of Matsui, Abreu and Cabrera. I think.

(Photo credit: MSNBC.com)