Rosenthal: Joba is not headed to Yanks' pen yet

Because of the early season struggles of the pen and injury to Brian Bruney there have been cries all throughout Yankeeland lately for the Yankees to make Joba the setup man again. Ken Rosenthal says not so fast, he's needed elsewhere.

First things first: Yankees right-hander Joba Chamberlain is not returning to the bullpen — at least not yet.

"I can revisit that at any point," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said Monday. "But right now, he is needed even more in the rotation than ever."

Chien-Ming Wang is on the disabled list. His replacement, Phil Hughes, remains largely unproven. The Yankees' current setup man, Brian Bruney might come off the disabled list in two weeks.

No, the Yankees are not panicking about their bullpen, not even after their weekend debacle in Boston. Cashman is always looking to upgrade, but says that he is not being "uber-aggressive" about looking for relief help, and that none of the available relievers interest him.

The Yankees' bullpen, featuring most of the same relievers, last season ranked second in the majors in strikeout rate, fourth in opponents' OPS and seventh in ERA. Cashman refers to the group as "talented and gifted and probably undersold."

"Nobody wants to hear it," another Yankees official said, "but you just have to let 'em pitch."

Actually, the best thing would be for the relievers to pitch less, and to that end CC Sabathia's complete game Monday night, even in a 4-2 loss to the Tigers, was a start.

Only two American League rotations — the Orioles' and A's — had averaged fewer innings than the Yankees' entering Monday's play. Wang, who worked only six innings in his three starts, was the primary culprit, but not the only one.

The Yankees believe that relievers such as right-handers Jose Veras and Edwar Ramirez will return to form as their starters pitch deeper into games.

Lefty Damaso Marte allowed Kevin Youkilis' game-winning homer on Friday night, but manager Joe Girardi said it was the best Marte has thrown all season — and he made a point of repeating that several times to Marte.

For now, the Yankees have little choice but to stay the course, but the calls for Chamberlain to return to his original role only will grow louder if the team's relievers continue to struggle.

I completely agree with Rosenthal. Like I've been saying for a few days now, the Yankees pen has been as bad as they are because they're overworked. You can't expect a bullpen to pitch four innings a game and still remain sharp. Most team's bullpens will struggle if their pitchers are only throwing five innings a start.

That was one of the things that I did like about CC's performance yesterday, he gave the bullpen the night off. Once we see more of that from the Yankees staff, the better the bullpen will be too.

As Rosenthal also points out, there are other issues with moving Joba to the pen; Brian Bruney and Chien-Ming Wang, and someone he didn't mention, Mark Melancon.

Until Chien-Ming Wang proves he can pitch again the Yankees only have five starters including Hughes. So there is no way they can move Joba out of the rotation now.

If Bruney can come back in two weeks and pitch like he was - and there's no reason to believe he can't - the Yankees don't need an 8th inning guy because they already have one. Also, Mark Melancon looks like the real deal, not based on the two innings in Boston, but on everything he's done in the minors as well. After getting his feet wet for a week or two, he could slide right into the seventh inning role, which would leave Jose Veras, Phil Coke, Jonathan Albaladejo, Edwar Ramirez and Damaso Marte to handle the sixth. I think that should work out just fine.

The bottom line is that the Yankees need to see where they're at with Bruney, Melancon, and Wang, before doing anything drastic.

Now, what happens if Melancon is as good as advertised, Bruney and Wang come back at full strength, and Hughes is successful as a starter? Well that's a unbelievably great problem to have for the Yanks and it will give them two choices:

1) Keep Joba and Hughes in the rotation and have something of a six-man rotation to limit the innings for the two youngsters, and if the Yankees have a lead after six the game will be over.

2) Move Joba to the pen and if the Yankees have the lead after five the games will be over.

Again, that would be a great problem to have, sadly I don't think it's very likely that things will work out that perfectly. They never do.