The Yankees have been hit and hit hard by injuries to their starting pitchers this spring, without question. Even before it was announced that their ace -- and former Cy Young Award winner -- Gerrit Cole would be lost for the season to Tommy John surgery, they had already lost Luis Gil, last year’s Rookie of the Year in the American League, to a lat injury that reportedly will sideline him for a couple of months at least.

It is a lot, without question. But it’s still not what the Dodgers had to endure, just with their starting pitching, last season. If the Yankees are looking for hope, and consolation, that their season isn’t over by losing Cole, they need only to look at the team that beat them in the World Series.

Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ general manager, talked the other day about what a “difficult” road the Yankees have to travel without Gil in the short run and Cole for the whole run of the season. He’s right about that. But the Dodgers just proved, and in the lights, that the job isn’t impossible.

Check it out:

Last season the Dodgers never had Tony Gonsolin, who went 16-1 for them a few years ago, because of his own Tommy John surgery. Dustin May, who is now back in Dave Roberts’ rotation, missed the entire year because of a freak esophagus tear sustained while he was eating a salad.

They got seven starts and two victories out of Clayton Kershaw, their former three-time Cy Young winner. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Japanese star on whom they lavished a free-agent contract worth more than $300 million, started just 18 games and had just seven regular-season victories. Walker Buehler, coming back from Tommy John surgery himself, did make 16 starts upon returning, but only had a 1-6 record, even if he did finish his season in rousing style by coming out of the bullpen and getting the last three outs of the World Series.

And Shohei Ohtani, who would win the MVP Award for his hitting, never made a single start because of offseason surgery on his pitching arm.

That is what happened to them in 2024. Even in the postseason they were still so short on starting pitching that Roberts needed a bullpen game -- eight relievers in all -- to save his team’s season when the Dodgers were down two games to one to the Padres in their Division Series.

Do the Dodgers look loaded now, with a healthy Yamamoto and their latest Japanese sensation, Roki Sasaki, set to start games in the team’s Tokyo Series against the Cubs? They do. Blake Snell, another Cy Young guy, is behind them, and so is Tyler Glasnow. It is expected that Ohtani will pitch sometime this season, but no one is quite sure when, what the timetable might be, now that he has paused his pitching progression.

So, things do look a whole lot better for them than things look for the Yankees right now. But the Dodgers are well aware that stuff happens with starting pitching. They can look back at last season and see that they got a total of 19 wins out of these four starters: Kershaw, Yamamoto, Glasnow, Buehler.

It is worth mentioning that the Dodgers also lost Mookie Betts for two months with a broken hand on their way to their World Series parade.

It was not just the Dodgers who survived and advanced last season. The Braves did, too, even though their major pitching loss was Spencer Strider. Ronald Acuna Jr., one of the young stars of the game, played 49 games for them. Ozzie Albies missed more than 60 games, Austin Riley missed more than 50, Sean Murphy -- who is hurt again -- only played 72 games. And when the Braves did stagger into the playoffs, they had lost Chris Sale, their ace and someone who had already clinched the 2024 Cy Young in the National League, to back spasms.

But the point is the Braves did make the playoffs, even if they didn’t make it out of the first round. The Mets made it all the way to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, in a season that saw them with a record of 22-33 after roughly a third of the season had been played. You know how many regular-season starts they got out of their ace, Kodai Senga? They got one. He had a sore arm, came back, injured his leg, didn’t come back until two starts in the postseason, one against the Phillies and one against the Dodgers, pitching a grand total of five innings in the playoffs.

The Mets did get enough starting pitching from Luis Severino, Sean Manaea, Jose Quintana and David Peterson to make it as far as they did. The Yankees still have Max Fried and Opening Day starter Carlos Rodón at the top of what’s left of their rotation, and will get Gil, who was spectacular early last season, back at some point.

“Normally, the more significant [pitching] opportunities don’t exist until the Trade Deadline,” Cashman said the other day.

He’s right about that. His team has no doubt been hit. Just not knocked out by these injuries. The Dodgers weren’t.