Tampa Bay Downs Yankees 10-8

The offense exploded for 8 runs, A-rod continued his (for lack of a better adjective) unconscious run, and the pitching was absolutely atrocious.

Another day for the 2007 New York Yankees.

What's the solution here? Are the Yankees done?

Well, first of all, anyone proclaiming that the Yankees are "digging too deep a hole" or "done" is a fool. It's April.

To be blindly optimistic would be injudicious. I know my last post was full of bold statements proclaiming the Yankees to be the top team in the AL East. I still stand by that.

The Yankees, however, need to develop some pitching consistency soon.

I think it's coming.

Tomorrow night, the ever-consistent Wang returns to the rotation. Many critics will, appropriately, point to his K/9 rates and say there is no way he can continue his success in the major leagues. I digress and will add more on that in a later post. The bottom line is this: the Yankees' ace (yes, ace) is back. Hopefully he can eat up some innings and give the tired bullpen a much needed rest.

Andy Pettitte, who is pitching very well this year, starts Wednesday. I think the Yankees should expect a quality start from him.

The real excitement, however, starts Thursday night:

Philip Hughes is here.

One of the top ten pitching prospects in all of baseball, and certainly the top prospect in the Yankee organization, makes his triumphant arrival against the Toronto Blue Jays. This is certainly no easy task. Is he 100 % ready? No, or he would have been on the opening day roster. Will he be better than Karstens or Wright? Absolutely. I expect Philip Hughes to post numbers consistent to those of a 3rd or 4th starter.

It is possible, however, that Hughes will make a Liriano type start and be absolutely dominating. Hopefully things end better this season for Hughes than they did Liriano. The Yankees MUST be delicate with him. His arm is NOT ready for a huge workload. I do not expect him to last longer than 5 or 6 innings unless he is being very efficient with his pitches. Extending him over 90-100 pitches could prove to be disastrous. I trust that Joe Torre and Ron Guidry understand this, but you never know.

This is why it's important that the Yankees get quality starts from both Wang and Pettitte.

I think that will happen.

As a side note, Mariano Rivera looked dominant tonight. He had good velocity, movement and location. There's nothing wrong with him.