Yankees Win, Mussina Sits

Yankees 5 Red Sox 3

These close games versus the Sox are one of the reasons my hair is turning prematurely grey. I have to say that it still seems strange to me that Johnny Damon plays for the Yankees, but hell, at the end of the day who cares so long as he is hitting home runs for us and not them. If you read my post yesterday you already know how worried I was about this series. Granted, they have only played the first of three, but at the very least we wont go quietly into that good night. Especially with Joba Chamberlin throwing 100 mph at the knees!

Moose takes a seat

It was inevitable I suppose, but now it is official, Mike Mussina is out of the rotation. I was surprised however to hear that he will be replaced by 2006 1st round draft pick and right hander Ian Kennedy. That brings a welcome sigh of relief. We need Chamberlin right where he is for the time being. No need to rush him any more than we already have. Kennedy is slated to start in place of Mussina on Saturday versus Tampa Bay, but the plan is to have Moose continue to throw his usual sessions in case things don't work out.

"We'll skip one start and see what we see," said Torre, who met one-on-one with
Mussina. "It's basically what we're getting from that spot. We'll look at that
first, then see what we do."

It no doubt must be hard on Mussina, but with a little over a month left to go and the Yankees 1 game out of the wild card and 7 games out of first the time for drastic measures had come. Everyone goes through slumps, and that may be just what this is for Mussina. But for the time being I think Torre made the right choice.

So what's the story on this new kid? Kennedy throws an 89-92 mph four-seam fastball that he can touch 94 with, changeup, knuckle curve, slider and has started to throw a two-seam fastball. According to scouting reports the kid has such good control he can put the ball wherever he wants and it makes his 89mph fastball seem much harder.

So we will see what happens on Saturday. Regardless, no matter what happens this season we at the very least know that we are going to have a feared rotation in the years to come. That's something we haven't been able to say for a long time.