The Wright Stuff

I know, the title is a little hackneyed.  It was probably the title for half the back-pages in New York, but I got to hand it to this kid, he pitched a pretty decent game all things considered.

Seriously, if you were to tell me two years ago that I would see a solid game pitched by someone named Wright on the Yankees, I would have fallen to the floor in a fetal postion and laughed till I cried.  Of course those tears would be from the realization that my Yankees did not have a reliable back of the rotation pitcher.

But after walking the first 2 batters, Wright only walked one more in the final 21 batters he faced in 5 innings.  If he was able to avoid giving up a Home Run to Travis Hafner (which is a task most professional pitchers have difficulty doing) he would have been as good as the Yankees would ask.  Along with Home Runs from ARod (again), Posada (his 200th career), and Mientkiewicz, Wright was able to win his first major league game.  Also consider that Wright outdueled and outlasted his opponent Jake Westbrook, who has just received a 3-year $33 million dollar extension the day before.  A $11 million a year player got outdueled by a 24 year old lifer in the minor league.  This is why I love regular season baseball.

Consider that every team plays 162 games over a course of a season, minimum.  You are near-garunteed to see some wild stuff during that time frame.  This is why I continually subcribe to the “Hitting is more valuable than starting pitching during the regular season” rule.  Don’t believe me?

Dice-K Matsuzaka has struck out 24 batters in 20 innings.  That puts him on a pace to K over 250 if he remains healthy for the entire season.  His ERA is 2.70 in three statrs, which is as good as you can ask from a starting pitcher, especially in the American League.  Oh yeah, he also boasts a record of 1-2, getting outdueled in those starts by “King” Felix Hernandez and Gustavo “Bad Shape” Chacin.  Perhpas if Boston’s offense wasn’t so inconsisten (when its good its good, but when its bad its bad), Dice-K would be 3-0 and a frontrunner for the AL Cy Young.

It’s hard to say whether Wright has officially earned a spot as a 5th starter on the Yankees considering they are still loaded with high-potential youth, but i’ll take 5 innings and 3 earned runs from a back end rotation guy any day of the week as long as the Yanks keep hitting and Arod remains on pace to hit 80 home runs.