Thoughts about yesterday

I was pretty frusturated with the Yankees yesterday after shutting off the worst second inning I've ever seen. I think Jonny Damon summed up the situation pretty well with this quote

"He's making it real tough on our bullpen right now," designated hitter Johnny Damon said. "We have to count on guys in our 'pen to go seven or eight innings. We have six losses on the year right now, and he's got three of them. In all three of those games, we've been blown out and we've had to go to our bullpen, so maybe our bullpen's not sharp the following days. I don't know what more to say, but hopefully he can figure it out, because it'd be tough to keep on going like this."

Now I thought to myself theres no way they let him pitch again until there reasonably sure hes fixed his problem, but I was wrong the pitching coach had this to say

"He's going to pitch, he's going to get confidence and he's going to get better,"

OK great, so we're going to have a starter who pitched worse than Sideny Ponson last year this seems like a real recipe for sucess. I don't really understand why the pitching coach after failing to fix Wang's problem for the past three weeks thinks he will be able to all of a sudden. My suggestion, put Wang in the bullpen and bring up phil hughes to make a few starts for him. This would be killing two birds with one stone, allowing Wang to fix his problems in lower pressue situations and get Phil Hughes some more major league experience.

Anyway lets hope that AJ can give us something worth watching today... go Yankees!

Phil Franchise...

So, for those of you who havent heard from Phil Hughes lately, he really has been impressive in his last two starts in the AFL (his final two starts in the AFL).

November 14th- 5 innings 2 hits 0R 1 BB 6Ks
November 19th- 5 innings 2 hits 0R 0 BB 10Ks (76 pitches, 53 strikes)

I'm sure all Yankee fans are ecstatic about the recent success of Phil, and you should know he's been throwing alot more strikes than earlier on in the AFL season.

I also still think Hughes will be a key part to the Yankees 09 rotation... especially if they sign AJ Burnett (you can't honestly expect him to stay healthy... can you?), so look for Hughes to make a serious run for a spot out of spring training.

Pat Venditte won MiLB.com's best reliever for class A short-season, he really is an interesting story, an ambidextrious pitcher... just try throwing a strike with your opposite hand... i dare you! (http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20081026&content_id=3646262&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb)

Phil Dominant

Phils line going into Monday from the Arizona Fall League was not good. The Yankees hopes were to get him to eat up innings, and he's done everything but that logging only 12.2 innings.

Phil's stats in the AFL going into Monday night...

12.2 innings
12 hits
9 runs(8 earned)
8 BBs
11 SO

Here's Phils line for Monday: 5 innings. 1 hit. 0 BBs. 0 R. 8 Ks. 59 pitches (41 strikes)

That's a great sign from Phil, who missed his previous start because of a torn fingernail. I'll keep posting how Phil has done after his starts in the AFL.

Here's a list of some other notable Yankees and how they're doing so far in the AFL:

Kevin Whelan (P): 10 innings. 6 hits. 1 R. 6 BBs. 10 Ks.

Humberto Sanchez (P): 6.1 innings. 13 hits. 12 R (11 earned). 6BBs.3Ks

Jeffrey Marquez (P): 13 innings. 13 hits. 9 R (8 earned). 8 BBs.14Ks.

Juan Miranda (1B): (In 42 at-bats) 333. 14 hits. 1 HR. 7 RBI.429OBP.

Kevin Russo (2B): (In 61 at-bats) 361. 22 hits. 1 HR. 8 RBI.391 OBP.

Austin Jackson (CF): (in 69 at-bats) 246. 17 hits. 1 HR. 11 RBI. 284OBP.

Not exactly stats Yankee fans would enjoy to see from these guys.

I'll put up how the The Hawaii boys (Andrew Brackman, Austin Romine, Damon Sublett) are doing later.