Hank Goes Bonkers; Thomas Just Goes

That 70s Show.

It only took Hank Steinbrenner 20 games to go back 30 years and channel some vintage George, circa 1977.

Hank's tirade is about how Joba should be in the rotation and should be in the rotation now.

Obviously a 10-10 start, Hughes and Kennedy not pitching so well as of yet, and Boston shaking off the non-existent malaise from the Japan trip and winning a lot of games lately has got TCS (The Current Steinbrenner) all jacked up.

The Current Steinbrenner: "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"

Swing Hard: Everyone does, Hank? Girardi and Cashman don't, clearly. As for "now," if you make Joba a starter it doesn't happen "now," it happens a good six weeks from now after Joba's had a chance to go down to the minors and build up to pitching starter's innings.

TCS: "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."

SH: Umm, Hank? Were you watching any baseball in 1996, when the Yankees had Mariano Rivera setting up for John Wetteland and won the World Series?

Apparently TCS just has to let off steam in public every so often. He endorsed this plan; it was TCS himself, after all, who mentioned the word "patience" in conjunction with the 2008 season.

Additionally, if you put Joba in the rotation, who exactly leaves the rotation? I don't fancy Mike Mussina as the long man out of the pen, nor do I want Ian Kennedy forced into that role.

Hughes and Kennedy will be fine. It's been four starts. Joba needs to stay in the pen. Mike Francesa put it best, a couple months ago:

"Good eighth-inning guys are like gold. . . . everyone wants one and almost no one has one."


Thomas Fails Carnegie Course, Loses Toronto Gig.

The Blue Jays released Frank "The Big (Always) Hurt" Thomas. The DH, tearing it up at a .167 clip, was unhappy to learn he was going to be relieved of his everyday DH role, thus making it unlikely that he would reach the number of plate appearances to cause his 2009 option to automatically vest. The Blue Jays decided that three weeks was too much and parted ways with Thomas.

It's all right to be a pain in the ass when you're hitting. A team will always tolerate a jerk as long as he's producing. Thomas has never been one to win friends and influence people, but he never had to, his bat doing the talking.

The knee-jerk reaction is to say that Thomas will get another shot somewhere, and he well might. But on the unemployed DH list there's also Barry Bonds and Mike Piazza. Most of the likely AL contenders look pretty well set at DH. Injuries always happen of course, but it's not automatic that Thomas plays in MLB again in 2008.