"It's great to be young and a Yankee."

This seems suspect.

So TPTB are already laying the groundwork, huh.

Girardi, who didn't divulge the magic number of innings allotted for Chamberlain this season, didn't say for certain that the right-hander would remain in the starting rotation for the remainder of the regular season or the playoffs.

That's something that we're going to continue to talk about - see how he feels and how strong he is and what we see," Girardi said. "It's not etched in stone... We have options. There are things that we'll have to evaluate as we get closer to that point. We still have what we feel is a substantial amount of time. We'll just continue and see how he's doing. That's a concern."

They're acting all, oh yeah, we have things totally under control. Yup. Right on top of that, boy! But, well, Joba's starts may only last 2 innings now. OR, hey, I guess 2 inning-outings would mean bullpen type work, right? I guess that's the only thing that makes sense. You know, because of the IP number. That's all. Just throwing some ideas on the wall, moving some figures around, any number of meaningless corporate cliches, really."

But they're simultaneously saying they've been on top of it all along, while suggesting all of a sudden his IP needs to be cut a bit. How do you lose track of something like this? You'd have to have Cody from Step-by-Step doing your number crunching. Or That Guy at the office who never comes to meetings, doesn't pay attention to what he's doing because he's doing the bare minimum to get it off his desk and cuts corners to get out of everything.

Because it really doesn't make sense to "determine a number of innings Joba can pitch" in the preseason and then half-way through the regular season, be all, "110 INNINGS?? I was WAY off! Uh oh. Oh boy. Umm, Joba needs to be taken out. Yeah, no, I mean RIGHT NOW. Dammit. Was this always this number? Or was this changed right after he pitched well for the first time since camera phones hit the market? Hm. Very curious."

So Cashman is saying that there is this mysterious, hard fast number that was decided on in the beginning of the season. And it's so immoveable that they may have to change his pitching role. If a number is that set in stone, wouldn't he have done a little bit more planning instead of acting like he's seeing his bar tab at 3AM after buying Jager shots for his dozen new best friends all night?

It doesn't make sense, especially since it's not as if Joba has been exceeding any kind of pitching limits when more often than not, the opponents' bats are dictating the point in the game when he's chased, not a magic IP watermark. Everyone's mum on exactly what this number might be, but Joba's outing's have ranged from .2 IP to 8, with an average of 5.2 IP per game. Isn't that roughly what the plan was for him? So unless they were planning on a season of Joba going 3 IP per game, how could, at midseason, everyone start wringing their hands because they binge-pitched.

It's convenient, though. Because if they move Joba to the pen, they're only doing it because of a number they're diligently sticking to, and not because they had an err in judgement making him a starter. And even better, his most recent brilliant outing clouds any suspicion.

And if Joba is hurt, (which I still maintain he is), this is the way to minimize the exacerbations, but drastically cutting down his pitch count, under the guise of "just following the rules." And they manage this proverbial injury without anyone being the wiser. Because if people DID know, I'd imagine they first incensed accusation scripting the mob mentality would be, "He's hurt because they pushed his arm too far! The management ruined Joba! CASHMAN SUCKS! YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED JOBA!"

(Yeah, so I get a little restless during rain delays.)