Lets face it, the Yankees need some consistent starting pitching on the back end of the rotation, and they need it now. Mike Mussina has become only an adequate #4-5 starter, Phil Hughes has shown flashes of stabilizing the #3-4 slot, but Ian Kennedy has been flat out awful. He has lost his most valuable asset: his control of 4 different pitches. The only pitch he seems able to throw for strikes right now is his fastball, which is the 3rd or 4th best pitch out of his 4 pitches. He needs to be sent down to Triple A to work on his control.

Meanwhile, at Triple A Scranton/Wilkes Barre, Darrell Rasner, who helped stabilize the back of the rotation with a mid-3s ERA before landing on the DL because of a freak accident at Shea Stadium, is dominating Triple A hitters and could produce the same results he did last year in New York right now while Kennedy goes down to work on his control. Also, he could be brought up to give the Yankees an effective long relief man, a role that is being occupied by an ineffective Ross Ohlendorf.

Ohlendorf's arsenal does not translate to multiple innings in the big leagues, considering his slider is a bit wild at times, and his fastball loses velocity after 1 inning. Ohlendorf could be a very valuable 1 inning reliever, and could one day fill the role of the set up man after Joba Chamberlain moves to the rotation. Both of them would be more effective in those roles, but I'm not going to have this turn into a blog about whether Joba should start or close.

The ultimate point here is that Rasner could be extremely valuable to this team and they need him in the MLB badly, but the front office is ignoring this issue and letting him waste away at Triple A. Maybe after Kennedy's ERA rises to 1 million and Ross Ohlendorf goes on the DL from overuse they will realize this.