Chien Ming Wang had what has to be considered his best outing of the year yesterday. He pitched 3 scoreless innings, his stuff was sharp, he kept his 2 seamer down and threw plenty of strikes (28/42 66%). Ground ball-flyball ratio was 4-1, that’s vintage Wang right there. Wang himself said it was the best he’s felt since getting hurt last year. He reiterated his desire to be in the starting rotation, and said that he could pitch 80 pitches/5 innings if called upon to do so, and could do even more the next turn in the rotation.
So now we have a decision to make. Hughes has been solid, pitching outstanding in some of his starts and acceptable in others, including yesterday. What to do? First, lets dispose of the ‘Joba to the pen’ stuff right away. Its not happening, the manager and GM made that abundantly clear the other day. Now lets look at Hughes’ upcoming starts to see when you might want to pull the trigger on this if you think Wang is ready:
July 5th-Home vs The Rays
July 10th-vs Boston @ Fenway park
July 16th-Home vs the Nats
July 21st-vs The Mets @ Citifield
July 27th-vs The Marlins @ Florida
We don’t have any indication that Hughes won’t be making his next start, so Friday vs the Rays shouldn’t be an issue. Another reason to hold Wang back is the next two scheduled starts for Hughes are two very tough matchups for a guy who’s trying to get his feet back under him in the bigs. The Rays are #1 in the American League in Runs Scored and Boston has a history of killing Wang under normal circumstances, and these are anything but. Fenway park is tough for anyone, its not the kind of place you throw a guy you’re trying to build back up.
Even when Wang does come back, I think they’ll keep Hughes around to back him up, just in case he gets knocked out early again like he did in April. You could pitch Wang for 5 and have Hughes pitch 2-3 after until he builds up his arm strength, in what would be a role reversal of their current slots on the team. That could also serve to keep Hughes’ innings down a bit before they send him down to AAA.
I think the Yanks will want to wait until after the Interleague Play in the NL parks is finished before putting Wang back in the rotation full time. After all, that’s how he broke his foot last year, by running the bases playing in the NL parks. But that would mean he won’t be making a start until late June. If they want, they could start him Tuesday the 16th vs Washington at home, and then skip him the next turn and go with Hughes against the Marlins in Florida, then skip both of them the next time around with the off day on Monday. WASH is a good matchup for him to get his feet wet again in the bigs. But that’s screwing around a lot with both pitchers’ routines. We may just have to be patient and wait until Interleague is over.
My guess? They hold Wang in the bullpen until the end of the month. I would.
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0 Responses to Wang's Getting Closer, Now What?
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I personally would have him throw in Pettite’s spot on Wednesday with Aceves backing him up. Let Wang throw 80 pitches and then Aceves should be good for another 80 or so if it even takes that. Then, let him go in Hughes spot. Sure it’s a tough matchup in Fenway but this isn’t a kid you need to baby. This is Chien-Ming Wang, the former ace of the Yankees and a guy that should be in his prime. His location and velocity look like they’re back and he absolutely dominated them last time. Let’s see what the guy’s got!
I liked Joe’s idea at RAB for Hughes (letting him go to the bullpen as a multiple innings reliever) if you could guarantee that he would get 5-6 innings a week.
Problem is, what happens when CC, Wang and Pettite each go 8 innings? You can’t guarantee that somebody is going to be relieved by the 6th inning each week. Also, a lot of those appearances could be mop-ups in a 11-2 game so it’s hard to say if he would learn a lot that way. Otherwise, it’s an absolutely wonderful idea. Give him a chance to learn major league hitters and get some confidence. Seeing him yesterday, you can tell he’s ready for the big leagues and could be amazing. Problem is, he won’t get his innings in so might as well just wait till next year
Yeah, that is why I only would do it if you could guarantee those innings- if one week he only goes 3, he needs to go 9 the next week.
Hughes needs another pitch, hopefully the cutter improves.His stuff is just good enough to get 2 strikes and a lot of foul balls.He doesn’t always have a finishing pitch.
If he pitches in relief he could throw a little harder for the shorter period.I like him as another Aceves.
Hughes already has a fastball, cutter, curve and change. Would you like him to throw a knuckle-ball as well? I remember the TBS guys saying the other night that Hughes needs another pitch when in reality he just needed to throw his curveball for strikes. That cutter of his had some sick movement the other night
Please, he throws his fastball and curve, the rest are after thoughts and rarely effective though occasionally he varies the speed on the curve.
Yesterday he had 0 & 2 on many guys and couldn’t put them away.Foul ball after foul ball.His fastball is too straight and not totally over powering, just good enough.
He needs an out pitch, something they’ll swing and miss at or hit weak grounders and pop-ups with if he wants to be anytihng mroe than an average ML starter.
Batters often looked comfortable yesterday.
He wasn’t hitting the spots with the curve…the curve is his out pitch. Agreed, his cutter wasn’t very sharp and the change didn’t break as much as he would have liked…so basically, he was pitching with his fastball and some so so pitches. I would venture to say he did damn well, considering not much was working as well as one would like. I think that shows me he has learned how to pitch with what is working, and keep showing the pitches that aren’t working. He is damn close to being a very viable option for the starting rotation.
Hay people, Joba is having troubles this year too. Put Phil anywhere they want, he’ll do the job and do it well…this kid is a right handed clone of Andy. He is a bulldog!
What to do with Wang? If I were the Yankees, I would make up another fake injury for him, put him on the DL, so he can make rehab starts in AAA. Then he can be on standby for when a starter inevitably gets injured.