This Yankees pitching staff does have the meanings of getting stronger down the stretch...
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by user Pfiore03
Now I've been posting on my blog called "Yankees Tonight" about the New York Yankees and basically all of baseball. So I'm new to this site. Anyway, tomorrow the Yankees start the second half of the season at Tampa with a 42-43 record basically tied with the Blue Jays for 2nd place in the AL East. Now I'll get to my point about the Yankees pitching staff.
Well the Yankees have Pettitte, Clemens, Wang, and Mussina (when schedule will pitch on 10 days rest) will all be at rested obviously. The Yankees need a clean slate in the front of the rotation with those 4 and they need to go 6 or 7 innings or more at this point until the bullpen gets better and rested. Now the 5th starter is going to be an issue. I'm going to you why the 5th starter is going to be an issue, Kei Igawa. His mechanics haven't changed from his first start. I know Nardi Contreras and Bill Conners have tried but he goes back to whats he knows and some of his pitches don't have any bite. So I think they can use him in the bullpen when Hughes gets back. Phillip Hughes and Jeff Karstens are on their rehab assignments and look for them soon but Hughes is probably going to ready quicker. The other options at this point are Tyler Clippard, Matt DeSalvo, Ross Ohlendorf, Pete Walker, and that's it if you exclude the stacked pitching at the Double-A Trenton level with Joba Chamberlain, Alan Horne, etc. Now Ross Ohlendorf and Pete Walker are both on rehab assignments, so I hope Minor League Baseball or New York Yankees organization websites gives me some info on the two. Now Matt DeSalvo has pitched better as of late with Scranton giving up 3 earned runs or less in 5 out of 6 starts. He has struck out more than 5 batters in 5 out of 6 starts as well. But Tyler Clippard does need seasoning but has the experience if necessary. A couple of things the starters need to improve on- IP's (481 innings pitched out of 86 games (which averages to about 5.6)) and the ERA 4.68. You can check on baseball reference.com and the Yankees first half splits for 2007.
Now the bullpen, the bullpen you can say has been overworked. I mean Rivera has pitched in 32 games, Proctor in 45 games, Luis Vizcaino in 42 games, etc. and the bullpen average for innings pitched is 3.3 (283 IP pitched out of 85 games) and that's despite keeping their team ERA down to 3.82. I hear people on message boards I post at such as Sports World NY that they want Joe Kerrigan fired as bullpen coach. What in the hell is this? Kerrigan is a bullpen coach. He doesn't serve as a pitching coach. Ron Guidry does. So if you want to blame someone for the poor pitching outings, blame Guidry. I know he did well before I was born as a pitcher but to say he gets a shot as pitching coach, wow. Bring in some one like Dave Eliand or someone like Nardi Contreras in to help. Now my bullpen options to help in the second half- Sean Henn, Jim Brower, Chris Britton, or hell Pete Walker as the long man.
