Freddy Garcia's Hand, and the Rotation Competition

So most people reading this probably all know that Freddy Garcia was hit by a comebacker in his pitching hand. The Yankees have said that the X-rays are negative, but there was swelling. Hard to say how long Freddy will be out for.

Girardi is still going on about the rotation battle. He has even discussed the fact that Hughes, Nova and Pineda still have minor league options and could be sent to AAA. I don't believe him. I already wrote about the rotation "battle":
4 Guys, 3 Rotation Spots

The idea of sending Pineda or Nova to AAA is absurd. Nova was the Yankees second best pitcher last year, and deserves a shot to continue the improvement that he showed in his excellent first full season. It is also extremely unlikely that the Yankees will send the player that they traded Jay Buhner Jesus Montero for to the minors. The only one that I could reasonably be sent to AAA is Hughes, but that would really only make sense if it was for a particular reason, like working on the change up.

The idea of sending a guy with much higher upside (all 3) to the minors to accommodate Freddy Garcia really doesn't make sense. Should Nova or Hughes or even Pineda fail as starters or get hurt Freddy can always come back to the rotation at a later date. It probably wouldn't take that long to get Garcia's repertoire of slow-slower-slowest stretched out mid-season. Why not give the younger, higher upside guys a chance to show that they belong in the rotation.

I hope that this is just Girardi thinking that he is motivating his young starters to do their best. He should be less vocal about it though, because we don't want Michael Pineda hurting himself trying to throw 98 in his third spring start to make Kevin Kernan and the boys at the New York Post happy. Let's all hope that the Yankees won't really judge them by tiny sample size spring performances.