Sunday Sweep

Darrell Rasner outperforms 2/3 of Generation Trey in his first start of the year, and the Yankees offense rides Seattle pitching out of town their snide now standing at five straight losses. The lineup continues to thrive from the top down, with the added treat of the two rotting corpses wearing #24 and #25 contributing at least slightly in the onslaught.

So Rasner justifies the organization's pregame vote of confidence, and now the team can look ahead to an off day knowing they once again followed a 3-game losing streak with 3 consecutive wins of their own, and find themselves a game over .500, hopefully not bound to fall back to even or below in this upcoming series with Cleveland starting Tuesday.

From Scranton's game today, Kei Igawa had a so-so outing going 7 innings, giving up 5 hits, 4 runs and 4 walks, while striking out 8. One of those 5 hits was a 2-run home run to Durham shortstop Reid Brignac, but otherwise, this seems to be pretty par for the Kei Igawa course at AAA so far this year. The rumblings seem to point to Igawa making a start in Detroit, which becomes a more frightening prospect the more one thinks about it. It would be Saturday, Fox's 3:55 EST game of the week, against a team fresh off sweeping the Yankees at home with the deepest lineup in the American League at this point.

It's amazing to me that my expectations for Igawa are so pitifully low without even seeing him throw a pitch in 2008. His results at AAA combined with seeing him during the spring, though, do zero to increase my confidence in his ability to get good major league hitters out consistently for 5-6 innings.

As I've thought about it, though, I understand more and more the thought process behind calling up Igawa for at least an audition at this point in the season. The organization probably wants Kennedy to make 2 or 3 starts in Scranton before they consider re-inserting him into the rotation (based on his level of success, of course. If he struggles to get minor leaguers out, then in Scranton he'll undoubtedly stay). Plus, they have so much money that, as of now, looks like it's been wasted on Igawa. Sooner or later, you want to see if your team can get something back for the $46 million you threw at him. If anything, you can bring up Igawa for the spot start, then try to ease him into the role of left-handed reliever once Kennedy warrants re-insertion.

For at least the rest of this week, the Yankees' rotation seems to make a little more sense, thanks to great performances from Wang-Mussina-Rasner consecutively. Andy Pettitte will look to rebound from 2 straight lackluster performances Tuesday, but more importantly he'll look to keep the ball rolling and make it 4 straight wins.