The Franchise Goes Down

Ian Kennedy got touched up once again last night in the Bronx, failing to go even five innings. Phil Hughes has a bigger problem, and it may go some way toward explaining his poor performance: a stress fracture in a rib. He will be out for at least a month while it heals, perhaps more, and then he's going to have to rehab his way back to the bigs. Like last year, we might not see him again until after the All-Star break. Needless to say, it's a devastating loss, not only for the club, but for those of us who were so excited to watch his development. (Not that it was going so well.) The Yanks have some replacement parts in the minors that, frankly, can probably reproduce the performances the team has gotten from both Kennedy and Hughes to this point. (Darrell Rasner has been lights-out at Triple-A, for instance), but that's, sadly, not a particularly high bar; the Yanks, after all, are 2-games under .500.

Hey, how's that Santana guy doing?