Tale of Two Pitching Staffs

As a team, the Yankees have posted a very solid 4.15 ERA this season, second best in the American League. The Yankees have been playing with 12 pitcher all season. 6 have pitched very well, and 6 have pitched poorly.

Pitching well have been Mussina (2.42 ERA), Rivera (2.30 ERA), Proctor, (3.47 ERA), Villone (1.66), Jaret Wright (4.30 ERA) and Myers (.87 ERA). These guys have combined for a 215 innings and given up just 66 runs for a 2.76 ERA.

Chien-Ming Wang (4.86 ERA), is in between.

Pitching poorly have been Randy Johnson (5.37 ERA), Shawn Chacon (5.21 ERA), Kyle Farnsworth (5.18 ERA), Aaron Small (7.78 ERA) and the duo of Tanyon Sturtze and Scott Erickson (7.59 ERA, 4.70 ERA). These guys have given up 107 earned runs in 169 innings, to combine for a 5.69 ERA.

Things look reasonably optimistic. Aaron Small, Scott Erickson, and Tanyon Sturtze shouldn't pitch these many innings for the rest of the season. Johnson is better than 5.37, and Chacon had only one bad start (due to injury) in the past half dozen. Farnsworth - we hope - will be better than 5.18. Villone may regress, but Octavio Dotel will enter the picture too. Mussina is sure to be a little bit worse, but Jaret Wright seems to be better than he looks.

Brian Cashman was on M&MD today basically saying "We're not worried". Looking back at this picture, I think I believe him. Darrel Rasner, Octavio Dotel, and maybe Matt Smith could all improve the situation further.

Now we just need to score enough runs.