Friday, May 23, 2008

Life after Joba: So far, so good

The bullpen fired 3 scoreless innings in a 1-1 game against Baltimore last night. By now, you know how it ended: the single, the strikeout, the "strikeout", the toss, the walk, the single, the game. The excitement of the bottom of the 9th overshadowed the performance by the bullpen...I would just like to say, that was a pretty gutsy move putting in Jose Veras in the 7th. Yankees brass have generally liked his arm, and the fact that he pitched in a tie game in such an important inning cemented that fact.

But more importantly, in an attempt to make all of the doubters in Yankees stadium eat crow, Kyle Farnsworth blazed through 3 batters, recording a strikeout and throwing only 7 pitches. The fans that normally roll their eyes when he enters a game, and subsequently boo his every pitch out of the zone, didn't even have a chance to buy a bag of peanuts before Kyle ended the inning. That's the Kyle Farnsworth we were expecting to get after 2005.

Kyle is our 8th inning man. Girardi has said that Farnsworth will get an "extended look", for sure. Obviously we knew that he was going to have the inside track. But there's no doubt that Girardi's mind was already set. Unless he pitches his way out of there, Farns isn't losing that spot simply because another reliever is doing well. Veras, Ohlendorf, Ramirez, Hawkins, Cox, and Melancon can battle all they want for the 7th inning, but the 8th inning is already set.

1 comment:

B.A. Baracus said...

Yeah I was at that game on Thursday. That was sick. And I heard Girardi on Fatso and the Retard (Mike and the Mad Dog) saying that Farnsworth is the 8th inning guy. I'm not totally pleased with it, but Joba has 4 plus pitches, and I mean, 200 innings of excellent pitching is much more valuable than 75 innings of excellent pitching. So Farnsy can be the 8th inning guy for now, unless alternative matchups dictate otherwise.