All I can say is wow. An impressive start for young Mr. Hughes. Look at this line:

6 innings, 2 hits, 0 runs, 2 BB, 6 SO, 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA

A GREAT win to snap a 4 game losing streak and Boston's winning streak is over too

It was a great outing for him. I hope he can keep it up. Hughes has great potential. Now, if they can get Wang back on track...

I heard on ESPN Joba may go back to the bullpen. I'm assuming they'll keep Hughes in the rotation and Wang will take Joba's spot, bumping him back to the pen. So it looks like everyone's wish about Joba in the pen may FINALLY come true.

But, first I wanna see how long Hughes keeps this up and if Wang can rebound. Both of those questions first need to be answered before I even consider endorsing that move.

I was always an advocate for doing exactly that - bringing Hughes up and returning Joba to the bullpen. However, with Wang out of the rotation, I don't know if that's possible. If Wang gets back on track, then I think it would be perfect!

It always seemed to me that there was an excessive amount of attention paid to Chamberlain's innings as a starter. It was almost as if they didn't have a lot of faith in him as a starter. I heard that his velocity is considerably less than what it was. Anyway, Peter Gammons was calling for his move to the pen for a week now.. They need a reliable set up man.

I agree with you that I'd want to see how Hughes does with 6 or 7 consecutive starts. He has potential, but has been plagued by injury and inconsistency

But again, if you do this, who's the 5th starter next year?

-Sabathia
-Burnett
-Wang
-Hughes
-? (Pettitte's gone after this season).

hey sign me up...i mean i cant do much bad compare to who ever the yankees have.

Don't worry about next year. This is the year that counts.

yea this year relly counts! i can see it the new york yankees with 58 wins! lol

Another impressive outing by Joba:

7 innings, 3 hits, 1 run, 3 BB, 6 SO, 1-0 with a 3.13 ERA

They'll get Halladay from Toronto! Isn't his contract up with the Jays after this season??

Man, I was sort of kidding about that, but I would LOVE it.

I'd love it too but not a chance in hell unfortunately.

Halladay may be the most valuable commodity in baseball. There are pitchers, who may display a little more talent, but Halladay is the only guy, who takes the mound planning to finish the game every time. He's a very gutsty player.

The Red Sox win .... The Reddddd Soxxxxx winnnnnn!

I really don't recall anyone asking about the score.

That's why I didn't give it.

Since I'm not in New York, how have the media treated Sabathia after his terrible start?

I'm guessing that he is going to hate the constant attention for the next 7 years. I would bet that if things do not improve soon, he will be kicking himself for not signing in his homestate of California and playing for a National League team.

The media's been okay to him, Goombah. But I think the fans are just on the edge of booing him, if they haven't already. If his next outing is another bad one, I suspect they will.

He has an opt-out clause after 3 years. He'll do his 3 and opt-out regardless if they win the Series or not.

Didn't feel like typing the whole message again.

......yeah, but they still SUCK

Every so often, elderly people with Alzheimer's, and even dementia, have been known to have a lucid moment or two. Joe Girardi better hope that Big George doesn't have one any time soon. If the man had his faculties, and this was ten, fifteen years ago, Girardi's sorry ass would be toast. Mattingly and Torre are both way too classy to publicly gloat, but I'll bet they're both privately laughing their asses off.

I was in the car late last night listening to John Sterling grumble how the Yankees just couldn't catch a break. He actually used those words---couldn't catch a break. Uhm, sorry John, when your team can afford the highest payroll in the history of organized sports---that's any sport---that's a pretty big break in and of itself. You guys know I'm a Met fan, but a Bronx guy too, so I really try to give the Yankees my support, unless they're playing the Mets. But listening to John Sterling and that groupie, Suzyn Waldman, makes it really difficult. Yankee fans deserve better than those two boneheads.

I couldn't agree with you more about Waldman and Sterling. IMO, they are truly awful. Most of my friends are Yankee fans. All agree that Waldman is the worst, and I'd say they're split about 50/50 on Sterling.

Sterling has been there a long time. I never cared for him, but I thought Michael Kay was pretty good. Kay made a comment a year or two ago that Ian Kennedy, after giving up 5 or 6 runs in an abbreviated start, told reporters that he thought he pitched well. Kay said that comment, more than his poor pitching, will lose the respect of his teammates. That's commentary that a lot of announcers don't make.

Also, Ken Singleton got himself in a little bit of hot water by commenting on all the lower level empty seats during the shortened series with Boston.

Bill White was a good announcer in the 70s. I usually got sick of Phil Rizzuto, and Frank Messer was like a dish of vanilla yogurt.

Mariano threw an 18 pitch ninth inning last night, in which he was stellar. He was coming off a full week off. Now why, on God's earth, didn't Girardi bring him right back in the tenth inning?

Bad move by Girardi.

Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter and Tug McGraw would give you three innings and beg to stay in for the fourth.

I agree with you that Rivera should have stayed in, especially when the next guy in is Coke.

Yes, but let us not forget there's been too many injuries too early in the season and slow starts by CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira. Also Alex Rodriguez hasn't played a game yet, Chien-Ming Wang went down early and Jorge Posada & Brian Bruney & Xavier Nady are all on the DL as well.

As for John Sterling, I enjoy him. A lot of people I know hate Michael Kay. I don't hate him but I'd take Sterling, John Miller or Joe Morgan over him any day of the week!

Yeah, but when you put an old team on the field that's the chance you take. They're gonna have injuries.

As for slow starts by CC and Teixeira, well boo-fuckin-hoo-hoo. They make more in a year than some small countries.

That was just terrible. Mo taken out in the 9th?? Oh, my. How many times has that ever happened?? Has it ever happened??

Now they have to 3 runs to score for a win.

I have a theory about closers in today's game, which is that they are not as effective in non-save situations or in "sudden save" situations. Both situations combined on Rivera, still an outstanding closer, to make his outing especially difficult. I'll explain my theory.

Saving ball games as a pitcher is one of the most stressful positions in sports, similar to a hockey goalie in overtime or a kicker in football lining up for a game winning kick. The present role of the closer is that he only pitch in the final inning when his team holds a slim lead. Therefore, unlike any other role in baseball, the closer participates almost exclusively in high intensity situations. We don't see many successful rookie or really young closers because they haven't developed or conditioned the steely psyche necessary to handle the potential pressure on a daily basis. The final inning is when the trailing team pulls out all stops, like pinch hitters, to plate the run(s).

Now pitching- effective pitching- is mostly mental. The closer is best suited to save the game when his team has a lead throughout the game. When his team is losing by a few runs late in the game (or winning by a large margin), the focus of the closer isn't the same as nobody is anticipating his service.

Here the Yankees were trailing in the bottom of the 8th by 2 with two out when they got a hit and homer that suddenly tied it going to the 9th where Rivera was logically but hurriedly summoned. Not only did his services become abruptly required, but the circumstances of his appearance were different, namely, keeping the team in it, rather than close it out. It wasn't so much that rivera didn't get enough time to get physically loose, but the circumstances of the game did not afford the time or type of game that allows the deep mental preparation to achieve the level of tenacity. I don't mean to imply that exceptional closers, like Rivera, can't function in non-save situations, or that they are unfocused in what appears to be a non-save game, but the natural momentum of a game heightens the conditioned sense or feel for the moment that closers develop to deal with the constant pressure of their jobs.

I have found also that closers have a harder time saving games when a large lead evaporated to a 1 run lead in the 8th than when his team held a 1 run lead since the third inning. Obviously, this theory isn't absolute.

I have always compared closers with kickers in football. Several years ago there was a game where the Saints were trailing by 7 and they were about 70 yards from the end zone with 5 seconds, and they inexplicably scored on a wild play with four or five laterals. The kicker promptly came on the field and missed the extra point. Up until the touchdown the circumstances and momentum of the game did not allow the focus that he would be kicking a game tying extra point. I believe if they were 3 minutes on the clock and they drove down the fied and scored on a 5 yard pass, the kicker would have been in a more comfortable focused mindset.

Notice that when a save situation is pending in the 7th or 8th, or in the final moments of a football game where a team is poised for getting into field goal range for a game winning kick, nobody talks to the closer or the kicker, who have to get to that happy place where the excitement of the moment doesn't interfere with focus.

Let's not feel too bad for our buddy, Mariano Rivera tonight. He still had a better day than Manny Ramirez. Sorry for the length of this post.