Pete Abe reports that Jon Albaladejo is the twelfth Yankee this season to be placed on disabled list after feeling a needle-like pain followed by a burning sensation in his elbow during tonight's outing in relief of Kei Igawa (more on him in a bit).
What all that means is anyone's guess but the short answer is that he's headed back to NY to have an MRI on that elbow. The best part of this equation is Chris Britton, who the team just demoted a few hours ago, will once again turn around and come back to take Albaladejo's spot in the pen. Correct me if I'm wrong, but something tells me we've seen this before. </sarcasm>
Switching gears towards Igawa, I found his post game thoughts to be incredibly entertaining, courtesy of Kat O'Brien:
Kei Igawa's first major league start may have been even worse than the numbers indicate. And that's even with him giving up six earned runs on 11 hits in three innings plus four batters. The Tigers had just two (TWO!!) swings and misses against him in 64 pitches. That's brutal.
Yet, after the game, Igawa seemed to have no realization how badly he pitched. He said he wished he had gotten more strikeouts, and that the Tigers found holes with their ground balls. Really?? They launched shots to the outfield all game against him. Joe Girardi said Igawa only commanded his fastball for strikes. Igawa, though, said he thought his changeup was good and slider not too bad.
What can you do but shake your head and laugh?
Perhaps those infamous shades he used to wear to the mound did more than protect his eyes from the sun because he must not have seen the dozen or so rockets that were hammered all over the ballpark tonight.
My only hope is that his performance eliminates any plans to ever have this guy start another game for the New York Yankees. Call up a kid from Scranton (oh, let's see, maybe Ian Kennedy?) who at least has a fighting chance to get big league hitters out and learn to live with the growing pains.