Look Ma, no pine tar. (Photo Credit: Paul J Bereswill)

Coming into the season, the Yankees pitching staff was considered the strength of the team. The rotation was planned to be CC Sabathia, the former Ace, who was transitioning from fireballer to crafty vet. Hiroki Kuroda, a seasoned veteran who carried the Yanks for the first half of 2013. Ivan Nova, the unheralded non-prospect who appeared to be the real deal at the end of last season. Masahiro Tanaka, the Yankees big ticket free agent signing, a man who went 24-0 in the NPB last year. And finally, Michael Pineda, the man the Yankees traded top catching prospect Jesus Montero for, who has spent the past 2 years dealing with shoulder injuries, is just now finally making the team. This was a pitching staff with more upside then you could shake a stick at. However, currently only 2 of those 5 starters are in the rotation, so what the hell happened?

Lots of injuries, that’s what happened. The Yankees were fortunate to have some depth at starting pitching this year.  Coming out of spring training they had 7 starters, Michael Pineda made the starting 5, while David Phelps and Vidal Nuno went to the pen and/or AAA. Of course a few weeks into the season that depth was tested, Ivan Nova was bitten by the Tommy John bug that’s been going around, and was quickly out until 2015. That put Nuno into the rotation.

Shortly after Nova’s injury, Michael Pineda decided to go and do something stupid like smearing pine tar all over his neck, and earned himself a 10 game suspension. Up until this point Pineda had been one of the rocks of the rotation due to CC and Nova’s ineffectiveness. Now, the Yankees were forced to move Phelps out of the long man role and into the rotation. Interestingly enough, this paved the way for the triumphant return of certified crazy person, Alfredo Aceves! In his return he has been quite effective out of the pen, with 5 hits and 1 walk in 7.1 innings.

To top off the injury issues. CC Sabathia, who hasn’t been able to get over 1 bad inning in many of his starts, is now also on the DL with fluid in his knee. Hopefully the time off will give him a chance to reevaluate his approach. We have seen signs that the big man is getting it together, but like I said before, 1 bad inning has derailed many of his starts. This most recent injury leaves everyone wondering, who will slot into the rotation now? Will it be the a fore mentioned Alfredo Aceves? Maybe, he has been the long man with the Yanks, so he should be stretched out. How about Chase Whitley, he’s pitched to a 2.49 ERA in 6 starts with the AAA RailRiders. He was also lifted from his most recent start after 1 inning and his next turn in the rotation is now listed as TBA. No injury has been reported, this leads one to believe a call-up is imminent.

Finally we get to the healthy part of the Yankee rotation *Knock on wood*. Hiroki Kuroda has looked more like the later half of 2013 this season. The culprit here is likely shoddy infield defense, as his walks (3.9%) and his FIP(3.32) are currently at a career low, he is also striking out batters at around his normal rate of 18.3%. Kuroda has also taken 2 losses already on quality starts, he only lost 3 quality starts in all of 2013, so the infield defense has been pretty brutal to the H-Rock.

Lastly we have Masahiro Tanaka, I really don’t have much to say about him. Tanaka has been all the Yankees hoped and more. His starts are a must see, Masahiro Tanaka is the Yankee Ace.

That’s our little recap of the Yankees rotation, what looked like a strength has become a weakness. However, because baseball is a silly game where all sorts of a random things happen, the Yankee bullpen, which seemed to be the teams weakness (outside of a shitty old infield,) has looked great so far. All we can do is hope the pen keeps up it’s good work and that CC come back and be effective, oh and, Pineda maybe stop smearing pine tar all over his body, that would be nice too.