Joba to the Rotation

There's no set timetable, but it looks like the Yankees are going to move Joba Chamberlin to the rotation. Given how poorly Kennedy, Hughes, and Mussina have pitched, this is probably the right move, and not really that much of a surprise. Still, Hank Steinbrenner, God love him, brings the flavor:

“I want him as a starter and so does everyone else, including him, and that is what we are working toward and we need him there now,” [Hank] Steinbrenner said Sunday by telephone. “There is no question about it, you don’t have a guy with a 100-mile-per-hour fastball and keep him as a setup guy. You just don’t do that. You have to be an idiot to do that . . . The mistake was already made last year switching him to the bullpen out of panic or whatever,” Steinbrenner said. “I had no say in it last year and I wouldn’t have allowed it. That was done last year, so now we have to catch up.”

That groaning sound you hear is Joe Torre being thrown under a bus, but you figure that's going to happen all year. The big question is who gets bumped from the rotation:

“I think once Hughes and Kennedy get plenty of starts and get Joba back, and with Wang and Pettitte, we will be fine,” Steinbrenner said, referring to the Yankee starters Chien-Ming Wang and Andy Pettitte. He also said he thought Mike Mussina, who is 39, “just needs to learn how to pitch like Jamie Moyer.”

While that could be construed as a recommendation that Moose work the corners more now that he's lost his fastball, given that it's Hank Steinbrenner we're talking about here, it probably means that he needs to learn how to pitch in Seattle or Philly.