Monday, May 20, 2013

Rain Helps A Shortened Rotation

(Thanks, Mother Nature.  Seriously.  Courtesy of Anthony McCarron)

Yesterday's rainout was a bummer in that it didn't give the Yankees a chance to sweep Toronto again and extend their division lead.  In the context of their current rotation situation and the always-important big picture, however, it could have been a blessing in disguise.

Andy Pettitte's spot in the rotation was scheduled to come up in this series against Baltimore, and the recalled Vidal Nuno was the likely candidate to make that start.  Because of yesterday's postponement, Joe announced that he will push the rest of his rotation back a day and go with CC, Hughes, and Kuroda in this series.  The team has a scheduled off-day on Thursday, with David Phelps getting the start Friday in Tampa and then CC and Phil cycling around again after him.  Pettitte/Nuno's spot would not come up again until May 28th, which would put Andy in a position to only miss 1 start if his back issue turns out to be as minor as the teams says and he comes off the DL as scheduled.

Andy missing any time is a loss for the rotation, there's no way around that.  But to have that loss minimized is another small silver lining to a bad situation.  It's not the first time something lucky like this has cropped up in a larger, unluckier circumstance.  Just another strange occurrence in a season full of them.

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