Out of lack of a game to watch tonight and sheer boredom, I started looking at Joba's innings. 

Last year, counting the minors and the playoffs, he pitched about 115 innings. 

Help me out here if I'm wrong, but I think the general rule of thumb is not to increase that number by much more than 30 the following season, so by that logic Joba's innings cap this year is about 145 to 150 - let's say 150 for arguments sake. 

After today's game, Joba now has 84.1 innings pitched.  If 150 is the max, then he has 66 innings left to pitch. 

I counted, and if Joba pitches every fifth game between now and the end of the season, his 11th start would be in game 162, a game which obviously could mean a ton or could mean nothing.  11 starts x 6 innings per start = 66 innings.  I happen to think it's much more likely that he reaches the eighth inning in more starts than he'll get pulled in the fourth inning, so he could definitely hit 66 innings before game 162. 

The Yankees must be 1000 percent aware of this as well, and I'm curious to see how they manage this down the stretch, when they very likely will not be able to afford to skip his turn in the rotation.  And I realize this is a very nice problem to have, but the Yankees will have a gy-normous problem on their hands if they reach the playoffs.

At what point do they have to shut Joba down? 

I think the Yankees panicked and moved Joba to the rotation too early this season, and as I've said many times, as good as it looks now, they still badly botched this plan in my opinion.  They had limited options at the time they "began the process", but based on the above math there's a decent chance they screwed themselves here. 

Let's go back to spring training, when this decision was made in the first place.  I believe Girardi saw all the question marks in the bullpen and insisted Joba start the season there.  But the Yankees would have been better off had he begun the season in the rotation and finished it in the bullpen.  His innings would be so much easier to manage had they done it in this order. 

People might bring up Wang's injury here, but that's not relevant because you have to go into the season assuming he would be healthy.  And if Wang wasn't a spaz in Houston, plus Pettitte, and Moose pitching the way he is - though we might argue vehemently otherwise - could you really see Joba getting the ball before Game 4 of the ALDS?  He might get a start ahead of Moose, but I doubt it.  Thus, wouldn't it make sense to have him in the bullpen this playoff season, where with the days off and no Joba rules he could pitch in just about every game, instead of a game (game 4) that might not even exist?  Wouldn't it be better to have him in the pen than have him capped out and not on the roster?

After seeing his work in the rotation the first part of the season (if they did it my way), there would be no argument for 2009 - he would have begun and finished the season as a starter, with an innings cap of about 180.  All of the stupid arguments about this would not have happened past spring training of this year, because the decision to move Joba from the rotation back to the pen this summer would have been a simple mathematical one, just as it was last year.  

I shouldn't be complaining about this today because this was a good day for the Yankees.  But I enjoy watching this kid pitch, and if he gets shut down right when the biggest games are about to start, or if they risk injuring him by pushing his innings cap...well, I'd rather not think about it. Except I already am and I'm not too happy.