Carl Pavano's agent has told Ed Price at the Star Ledger that his client has been advised by the Yankees he will start Saturday night's game against the Orioles at Camden Yards.  

Girardi has not yet announced who will start the second inning.  (Just kidding Carl). 

Ponson, Rasner and Pavano - not exactly the '98 Yankees rotation.  But stranger things have happened, and usually do... 

One way or the other Saturday will be entertaining at least. 

http://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2008/08/pavano_to_pitch_saturday_for_y.html

Word on the street is that Melky has been sent to Scranton, and Richie Sexson has been released.

Gardner has replaced Melky on the roster and bats 8th tonight, and Cody Ransom has been called up to replace Sexson. 

I think this is referred to as addition by subtraction. 

Gardner is fun to watch when he gets on base every other game, and at least Giambi can now play against lefties I would hope. 

http://yankees.lhblogs.com/2008/08/15/melky-optioned-sexson-released/

I got home in time to see IPK on the YES postgame show. 

I wanted the Yanks to give him the ball tonight, but there's no defending that performance, unless of course, you're Ian Kennedy. 

Yes, he gave up a few bloop hits and some ground ball singles.  But he also got ROCKED.  And of the six outs he recorded, one was a rocket that took a lucky bounce off the pitchers mound, and the other Melky caught about 5 feet from the centerfield fence. 

And he stands there in the locker room afterwards thinking he pitched pretty well, "and that's all that matters".  Um, not exactly Ian.

KIM JONES:  Were you surprised that Joe Girardi took you out of the game?

KENNEDY:  A little bit, yeah. 

Are you kidding me?  You're a rookie, you enter the game with an ERA above 7,  you give up 9 hits in 2+ innings and you have the balls to say you were surprised that your manager pulled your ass out of the game?

Gimme a break.  In his head he thinks he's Mike Mussina. Too bad he's got the arm of Mike Maddux. 

You have to see the postgame reaction of IPK to believe it.  It's getting harder and harder to want this kid to do well.

Pete Abe has a good writeup of it.  Nice Pettitte reference:

http://yankees.lhblogs.com/2008/08/09/kennedy-im-just-not-real-upset/

Both Rasner and Ponson are no good, but Ponson has been slightly better, which tells you all you need to know about Rasner.  

Rasner stinks, and IPK has been dealing for Scranton.  Make the change.

LAA is not an ideal team for IPK to face, but it would be Friday night at 10:05pm EST, which, to me anyway, seems like the perfect way to slip back into the rotation.  A lot less people will be watching.  

Besides, don't they need to have at least some idea what to expect from this kid next year?   

If he's horrible, they can turn to Hughes a few starts down the road.  If he's good, they can have Hughes replace Ponson.   

D-Ras had a couple of nice moments, but he's not a big league pitcher.  Let's try to find out if IPK is. 

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. 

8 shutout innings can make an old team look young and energetic, and a young and energetic team look overmatched.  Great job by Pettitte.  Aside from the stinkbomb against Boston, Andy has been fantastic.  At this stage in his career I'm sure it doesn't matter, but he certainly looked very comfortable pitching to Molina, as does Moose. 

Glass Carl / American Idle Pavano actually threw pitches to hitters today.  Apparently his arm didn't fall off, he didn't pull an ass muscle, and he didn't wreck his car on the way home because he is scheduled to pitch again in 3 days.  Wouldn't it be funny if Pavano of all people is back before Hughes and Wang and actually contributes to this team?  As Girardi said, "you never know". 

The Red Sox came back and won against Minnesota, but no big deal since the Yanks are chasing the Twinkies as well.  More importantly, the Sox had to use Papelbon for the 3rd straight day, which is something they would never do last year.  Given his history of arm troubles, Papelbon could break down if the Sox have to become over reliant on him.  They have sent Masterson to AAA to prepare to become a reliever, but I don't think he's their 8th inning answer. 

Pavano throws pitches, Melky hits a homerun, Jeter makes a great defensive play, and tomorrow 18,000 mustaches will be handed out at Yankee Stadium.  Welcome to the bizarro world.  If the Yanks pull one out with Fat Sid on the hill tomorrow, look out American League.

For you pitching mechanics freaks out there, the cover story of this week's Sports Illustrated by Tom Verducci looks at The Freak himself, Tim Lincecum, and how his father helped him developed his crazy motion.  

Verducci also discusses mechanics in general, and there's some interesting stuff from Rick Petersen, who won't be out of a job for too long. 

It's a good read, check it out:

How Tiny Tim Became a Pitching Giant

Shelley got 3 games for that stupid slide, and Melky got 3 for apparently punching Longoria during the fracas.

This means the Yanks will start the season with a one-legged leftfielder, an armless centerfielder, and a guy from the end of the bench DH'ing or playing first.  

Well done boys.  

frontpaged by jscape2000

Read today Beckett's back spasms could cause him to miss Opening Day.

I remember Wang's absence and the domino effect it had on the Yanks staff the first few weeks of last year. You could say the Yanks lost the division because of it.

Further, check out Boston's March/April if you haven't seen it.  It's horrific:

http://mlb.mlb.com/schedule/index.jsp?c_id=bos&m=4&y=2008

They go to Japan to play Oakland, then to Oakland to play Oakland. Then they get Halliday and Burnett in Toronto, then Detroit, the Yankees, Cleveland, Yanks again, Texas and Anaheim.  Then they finally get to play Tampa Bay. Even with Beckett that's a rough stretch.

Boston might have won the division in April last year.  The Yanks could win it in April this year.  They HAVE to get out of the gate fast.  

One thing I've noticed since all these Santana rumors started is that only one official from one of the teams is doing any talking on the record. And we all know who that one official is.  

Here are a few more gems from Hank tonight:

"I think our offer is the best offer," Steinbrenner said. "We have the best young pitchers in the game, even better than Boston."

Then...

And if the Yankees are to be a part of trade talks, "now" means by Monday, according to Steinbrenner, who said: "The Twins are aware of it, that I'm not going to wait much longer. And the truth of the matter is, they don't want to be stuck with only one team to deal with. If they're stuck with just Boston, they're going to get a lot less. I'm not going to be played. This is not a game. This is serious business. I'm not going to be played, us against the Red Sox. That's not going to happen."

Steinbrenner contradicted reports that the Yankees and Twins were haggling over the third player in the deal, that the Twins wanted either righthander Alan Horne or Ian Kennedy or centerfielder Austin Jackson along with Hughes and Cabrera.

"That's erroneous," Steinbrenner said. "I don't think that [the third player] will be the sticking point."

http://www.newsday.com/sports/ny-spyanks1203,0,399845.story

He also had lunch with Bill Madden of the Daily News recently, and the piece ran today.

A few nuggets:  

"I had a lot of good teachers whether they know it or not," Hank says now. "All those dinners on the road with Clyde and Woody and Lou - I learned a lot."

"What was the most important thing you learned?" I asked him.

"The mistake of trading young pitching," he answered quickly. "It killed me seeing all those young pitchers we traded back then - (Scott) McGregor, (Jose) Rijo, (Doug) Drabek - who went on to have great careers because we just didn't have the patience. If there's one thing that's going to be different between me and my dad it's patience."

"Maybe," I said, "but it sounds like you're about to do the same thing - trading young pitchers - for (Johan) Santana."

"There's a big difference," Hank countered. "Santana's only 28 and just coming into his prime. I remember consoling Woody when my dad insisted we trade Drabek for (Rick) Rhoden. Rhoden was 32 or 33, but back then that's the way we did things.

And...

"You've been pretty out front lately as the spokesman for the organization," I said. "I assume the old man is okay with that?"

"Like I said, I feel I have a duty to let our fans know as much as I can with their team, although sometimes I do go too far," he admitted. "In the respect of being the front guy, that's gonna slow down now. This is my last interview."

"You sound like (Richard) Nixon," I said. "Are you saying we won't have Hank to kick around anymore?"

He laughed.

"No, I guess what I'm saying is we don't want these huge media circuses that were associated with my father. I mean he wasn't Jonas Salk."

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2007/12/02/2007-12-02_bill_madden_breaks_bread_wi th_yankees_ne.html

He needs to shut up. Cashman must be dying.