Joba Expects To Pitch This Month

I hope the Yankees are being as cautious as I expect them to be, but if Joba Chamberlain is indeed correct, it's great news that "The Hutt" could rejoin the Yankees rotation by late August - at which time he, alongside Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy could be celebrating a Generation Trey reunion.

Isn't it ironic how the Yankees will, in all likelihood, begin and end the season relying heavily on Hughes and IPK as rotation stalwarts.

Ed Price of the Star Ledger is reporting Chamberlain will likely miss a month, though he cites Yankees anonymous sources who call the injury "minor" and even says the injury was actually to his "biceps tendon" and not the rotator cuff.

From the ESPN article:

Joba Chamberlain plans to start a throwing program next week and expects to rejoin the New York Yankees' rotation this month.

"I'll be throwing in a week. I'll probably throw the beginning of next week," Chamberlain said Friday when he arrived at the Yankees' spring training complex. "Everything feels fine now."

[Chamberlain] never thought the problem was serious.

"No. Not at all," Chamberlain said. "It would have been different if I wasn't still throwing 99 [mph]. It was a different feeling that I never had, so I just wanted to make sure."

When asked if he would be ready to start again for the Yankees by Sept. 1, Chamberlain said "I'll throw way before that in a game."

Alrighty then. Yankees docs, let's try and do your due diligence on this one. I don't want the same brilliant minds who allowed the Mets' Ryan Church to play through concussion symptoms going near Mr. Chamberlain. I'd rather the Yankees play it safe with Chamberlain and thereby risk the 2008 playoffs, then take any chance on Chamberlain's shoulder and thereby risk the next decade.

If Joba is really suffering from the common malady of "shoulder tendinitis," then it does not make a difference if he rests for the next week or the next three months. As long as the inflammation subsides and his shoulder is properly restrengthened, there isn't any reason Joba can't return from this injury rather quickly.

Again, that is if the Yankees brass is offering the public an honest diagnosis and isn't playing the cloak and dagger games they have in the past.