Paging Johnny Damon - - SHUT UP!

Johnny Damon made headlines today by questing Joba Chamberlains move to the starting rotation.

Here is his quote in the Daily News:

"I just felt like our bullpen was our strength. I think it still could be, but when you move a guy like that, everyone's trying to find a role. Everyone's trying to replace a guy who was possibly the best in that role.

"I remember the teams the Yankees won (championships) with, if they were winning after five innings, it was pretty much game over. We kind of felt that way this year. If we were winning after six, we had (Kyle) Farnsworth in the seventh, Joba in the eighth, and Mariano in the ninth - we thought it was game over.

"Now, instead, we're trying to find out who's best suited for that eighth-inning role...

"We're trying to figure out what's going to be best for the team," said Damon, "and in the long run, that's what they're looking at. You'd have a starting rotation of (Phil) Hughes, Joba, Ian (Kennedy), and Chien-Ming Wang in the future. That's pretty good.

"I think we were still getting games into the late innings, and our offense is going to keep getting better. Now, you see what happens.

"You know what?" he said with a smile. "It's not up to me. But I like winning ballgames."

Johnny is point-blank wrong. It is time to move Joba to the rotation. Now some people argue that Joba as a starter helps the team once every five games whereas in the relief role he can influence every game. This is incorrect for two reasons. He cannot pitch everyday and will only come into a game when the Yankees are ahead (and usually only ahead by a few runs). As of May 21st when the transition to starter began, Joba had only appeared on 17 of 43 games or roughly every 2 in 5 games. In those games he had 33 IP, or roughly .8% of the innings the Yankees had played. These numbers show that Joba was not winning every game for the Yankees. As a starter he will have a chance to directly dictate how every fifth game goes instead of relying on others to get the team to a point where he is effective.

But the real reason to bring Joba to the starting rotation is the playoffs. The morale of the playoffs is starting pitching wins games. Over the past few years the Yankees have not had starters last in the playoffs. Sure Chien-Min Wang leads the league in regular season wins over the past two years but his low K-rate makes him a poor playoff pitcher. Simply put teams can easily put the ball in play off him leading to many weak hits. Mike Mussina gave up 2 runs in 4.2 IP last year leaving Andy Pettitte and Phil Hughes as the only Yankees to have a good outings pitching six and a third scoreless and five and two-thirds with run one respectively. Still, Pettitte is a year older and Hughes has shown nothing so far this year on his way to the DL. The Yankees need to begin to groom that ace who can win two games a series and Joba is that guy.