Sometimes, I think this team’s Front Office just gave up after Chien-Ming Wang got hurt. While I agree with the decision to keep Phil Hughes on AAA working everything out, you can’t keep both Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson in the rotation as long as they have been and expect to win enough games to go the postseason unless you are like the 1927 Yankees or something. You can have one, but you can’t have both. Signing Sidney Ponson instead of going for a replacement level pitcher or something was fine when he was going to make one start, however many starts later (it feels like a thousand) it is terrible.
Rasner being simply awful (I feel bad for the kid, but he is just not a good pitcher) cemented Ponson getting another start as Alfredo Aceves had to come in and pitch 5 innings. Aceves got a little lucky, and allowed a homerun to Willy Aybar but looked pretty okay again. There were a few too many lineouts, which you don’t like to see but it wasn’t like one of those Ponson BABIPimania starts.
With Aceves, Rasner, and Dan Giese all on the roster again there’s no reason why Joba should be in the bullpen instead of bumping Ponson out of the rotation. He can’t get sent down to the minors to stretch it out, but they could easily take the same route they did before and just stretch him out up in the Majors. He’s not going to the Arizona Fall League to get up to that innings ceiling and coming out of the bullpen is not going to do it either. That means his ceiling next year isn’t going to go up and is why they’re talking about once again having him start the season in the bullpen (which again, they shouldn’t do–just put cobble together a six man rotation with both him and Hughes in it or something for real this time).
I was really hoping the team would go with the unorthodox six man rotation this year because it would have put all the best pitchers where they belonged and not caused such a collapse when Hughes got hurt and Kennedy came up short. The bullpen hasn’t really fallen to pieces since Joba was taken out (except for some bumpy “Oh God we’re tired” appearances), and I think with inning ceilings, potential free agent signings and what have you for 2009 this could be the best option again. It won’t happen but I can dream.
Anyway, Yankees face Brandon Morrow tonight. I am looking forward to their flailing uselessly against a young pitcher with Joba like talent. It will cause me to reminisce about the good parts of the season.
