Hughes was very good again. And just as he's getting his offspeed pitches back to form, becoming the pitcher he's capable of being, he's going to be moved to the bullpen and we'll go through this all over again for the next two years. All for the incredible AJ Burnett.
I hope Cashman's fierce defense of AJ was a calculated move to boost his confidence for when they move him to the pen... but I won't believe it until I see it.
I know, but that defense was also before Hughes' very good outing this afternoon. That comment could just as easily have been meant as motivation for Hughes today (although I'm not sure it was either). Well, the point is moot now that Garcia is hurt, but Girardi was going to go to a five-man rotation before AJ was going to get another start. Where was AJ when this "kitchen accident" happened? ETA: Hughes's changeup looked pretty damned good today, and I was happy to see that he was throwing quite a few of them. (I think he threw it 10 or 12 times.)
It would really suck to see Hughes relegated to the bullpen; since returning to the rotation he's pitched very well (even in the games where he hasn't had his best stuff, he's battled through 5-6 innings.) It couldn't be clearer that Burnett should be the odd man out in the rotation. By the way, you've gotta love seeing Jorge have a huge game. He might be the most underrated player in the history of the franchise--not many catchers in baseball history have been capable of giving 20 homers and 90 RBI every season. Posada won't really have a place on this team once A-Rod comes back, but I sure will miss him when he's gone.
What are the odds the Yanks don't PP the game until 3:30 or something, so they can make the money on the concessions from the 10,000 or so saps that will show up anyway?
I think that they'll wait until the last possible moment to postpone the game, but it doesn't have anything to do with concessions. The Yankees are in a tight division race, they don't wanna mess up their rotation by having to play a double header at the end of the season.
The Yankees management (and the Mets, to a lesser degree) are notorious for waiting an absurd amount of time to postpone a game, and it has everything to do with money. Don't fool yourself. The fact they waited until after noon is a joke within itself. A lot of roads were flooded and closed and mass transit wasn't up to par. It was pouring at 4 or 5 in the morning straight up until the middle of the day.
I'm not trying to fool myself. I was just letting the guy who posted at 2pm know that the game had already been canceled. I make no claim as to the motivation of the timing one way or the other.
Well, the other poster had said something about not wanting to screw the rotation up later in the season. That's what I was referring to.
I'm seeing most "educated guesses" being that Hughes will get screwed. That really pisses me off. I don't want to hear about this "experience in the pen" bullshit. Jerking guys around who have shown they can be elite when you don't screw around with them is ridiculous. All for AJ Burnett, who has the potential to be elite, but with no rhyme or reason can be absolutely awful. It sucks that Garcia is out right now, but that gives Hughes another shot to show he doesn't deserve the demotion. If he's lights out, it's going to be hard to justify moving him, regardless of AJ's performance. (Then again, maybe Garcia then gets sent to the pen.)
