The Yankees shut down Nathan Eovaldi for the rest of the regular season:
Eovaldi underwent an MRI on Monday after reporting pain in his elbow two days after his last start, a loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday. According to Cashman, the test showed no ligament damage, just inflammation, for which Eovaldi was given a platelet-rich plasma injection. Team doctors ordered that the right-hander be shut down for two weeks, after which he will start a throwing program that is expected to take another two weeks.
That puts Eovaldi’s return right around the end of the regular season on Oct. 4, making it unlikely he will pitch again before the playoffs. And even then, it might not be as a starter.
So the Yankees have to hope that CC Sabathia‘s new knee brace works. My feeling is that Sabathia should do what Mike Mussina finally did the last year of his career, embrace his control and throw slow. It took Mussina many years to give up trying to throw hard. When he did, he had a great season. The Yankees should hire Jamie Moyer to spend the winter working with Sabathia to teach him the slow and slower pitches. Sabathia was always good at putting the ball over the plate, now he just needs to learn to change speeds over a large range.
CC was never a pitcher with great command in the zone. He did not need to be since his stuff w overwhelming, so he could through middle middle and get away with it.
Now he can’t. He does keep away from awful starts where he goes 4 innings or less and gives up 6-7 runs and keeps them in the game
He is awful tough against LHB’ers, and he gets away with his command with RHB’ers who chase balls out of the zone. I have seen pitchers with lesser stuff do better, but they have better command in the zone.
His career as a good starter is over with that knee, he has almost no cartilage left. Not many teams go through hoops to keep a 5+ ERA guy in the rotation. Its been 3 years of well below average pitching now.
He is also lucky teams don’t bunt on him much. Maybe in the NL he has a tougher time with that.
He has pitched well with 8+ days rest this year, so I expect he may have a decent game against the Orioles who look awful right now except Davis and Machado