Kennedy is young and is still learning his craft. It isn't like he is the first or only Yankee pitcher to get knocked around by the Angels this year.

I'm sorry, but those comments go well beyond a refusal to express doubts and concerns openly.

I'm with Simone. I see no need to pick apart the kid's facial expressions, and conditioned lack-of-doubt afterward. He's bred to shrug off bad outings. Cut him some slack.

Besides, who's really in denial here? The kid, or the desperate dolts who gave him the ball, knowing pretty much how it was going to end up? They kept saying he wasn't ready. What did they expect? That's the story. Not Ian's feckless grin.

Wrong on both counts kid.

It wouldn't erase the loss, nor would it change everybody's very strong impression that he's not ready -- nor would it change my impression that the Yanks themselves are denial if they give him the ball again 5 days from now.

Kennedy's problem is in his head, not his arm and I think the interview reflects that.

It's funny. When Jeter or ARod smash the ball, but Due To The Random Chaotic Nature of Baseball (DTRCNB) it's right to the SS, and it turns into a DP, we are all pissed at the batter. However, if the ball is NOT hit as well, but DTRCNB it finds a hole, it's "YEAH! CLUTCH BABY".

When players hit ground balls, they do not control whether it's hit 2 steps from the SS (for an out) or 4 steps from the SS (for a hit).

Yes... we look and judge by outcome. On outs, sometimes we say 'at least he hit it hard'. But the truth is, it is ALL determined by RCNB. It's luck, fate, destiny, whatever.

Even the Angel announcers (hard to listen to) kept saying how the 'hits had eyes'. On another day, the big scoring 3rd inning could have just as easily been a dominating 1-2-3 inning. 2 ground balls, another that Jetes boots, and 2 flairs. 5 guys got on base. It could have just as easily been 5 outs.

And again, with better D by JD (or Melky?) and Jetes, there's 3 less runs.

Did I think IPK pitched well? Not really. The doubles (including the ball missed by JD) were hit hard. Some of the outs were hit hard. But the score did not tell the story.

Between JD and Jetes, seeing eye hits and bloops, IPK was on the wrong side of RCNB. Just pointing that out before we declare him a bust.

"I'm not too upset about it. . . . Even on their singles, like, what, ground balls? [shrugs] So, that's not a big deal."

AND

"Honestly, it's quite a bit the same. I just got ahead of guys. I felt like I made good pitches when I tried to get them out. I jammed some guys, got some bloop hits at the end."

With Cliff's analysis of the third inning:

"Four singles followed, the first a well-placed grounder through the first-base hole by Vlad Guerrero, the next a slow hopper to shortstop that Derek Jeter booted, and the last two flares that dropped in just fair behind first and third base."

Meanwhile, Girardi says that he got into bad counts with runners on, forcing him to throw cookies. But is that true? I just went through the gameday play-by-play, and that doesn't seem like an accurate assessment. Three of the last five hits he gave up (in the third inning) came on 0-0 or 0-1 counts. In the first, Torii Hunter's double came on an 0-0 count. In teh second he put two men on and then got ahead of the next two batters 1-2 before recording outs. He di get behind a number of batters, some of whom got hits and some made outs. But the play-by-play does not support Girardi's analysis of the problem.
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Kennedy had a rough outing last night, no doubt. And maybe it would make us feel better if he looked sad after the game, or if he made better selections from the cliche handbook. But I'm not sure his own assessment of his performance was particularly inaccurate (who knows, maybe this is precisely what he did in AAA, and if so, how else would he react?), nor do I think his manager's comments particular insightful.

Kennedy was awful. He went to the minors, came back and was awful. He got hurt, spent more time in the minors, came back and got six outs. At what point do you stop saying that he's had bad luck and start talking about bad pitching?

IPK is a command pitcher. If he pitches to the fat part of the plate, he gets hit hard. We all know his 'stuff' (speed, movement) is average.

His command is about experience, confidence and a good day. Will he ever get there? I don't know. Here's my guess. If he were on a lousy team, with lousy pitchers, and allowed to pitch for a season without the words 'bust', 'Santana' and 'AAAA' coming up, his resume tells us he SHOULD be at least a MLB #5.

Like Carlos Pena and many others, the Yankees just don't have the time and situation to allow failure. Karstens threw 7.66 PERFECT IP the other day. It ain't easy to be a kid on the NY yankees.

(A) Johan Santana, (B) Ian Kennedy

How much time do you want to give him?
How much time should we have given Pena? Leiter? Juan Rivera? Do you want the whole list?

First of all, Santana was pitching out of the bullpen at the time.

Second, they're entirely different types of pitchers, and that makes a world of difference. If Kennedy had Santana's stuff (and were pitching in long relief) I'd probably feel differently about it.

Kennedy hasn't been mediocre this year, he's been awful. Even the Pirates shouldn't allow him to keep pitching all year with an ERA north of 8.

Would you like me to counter your list with a list of young players who looked bad and turned out to be bad? Just because a young player performs badly doesn't mean he's a diamond in the rough. I get tired of the specious comparisons.

Ground Balls: 58
Fly Balls: 62
Line Drives: 18

Just 13% line drives is not all that troubling. What we're looking at is one unlucky pitcher. That, plus the high number of walks, is what's led to the high ERA. When the BABIP comes down, Kennedy will be the #3/#4 starter we all thought he would be.

"Pettitte (12-8, 4.18 ERA), who didn't seem thrilled about throwing to a new catcher, called his outing "terrible," "embarrassing," "pathetic" and "ridiculous." No one who saw it would disagree."

After that honest appraisal--no arrogance mind you--Pettitte went out and got spanked again five days later.

You know what, I don't care all too much what the players say after the game, whether they play the angry card or the contrite card or the confident card or the defiant card. I'm rather more concerned about performance.

SMALL SAMPLE SIZE ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wasburn is a #4 at best, probable #5. He costs $9m. IPK costs $0.4m. As a businessman, is it worth giving IPK enough time so you can determine the type of MLB pitcher he may be?

By all measures of pitching, Kennedy has been terrible this year. His postgame comments don't show the "grit" or "humility" of Andy Pettitte, but they also, to me, betray a lot of frustration.

At the same time, as 18 points out, Kennedy has been terribly unlucky, and in theory, the more he pitches that should round out, assuming he stops walking guys.

So Kennedy is certainly not as good as his AAA #'s suggest, but then we've always known that.

But he's not as bad as his current ML #'s suggest, and we've probably already known that too. It's possible that his BABIP is so high because his pitches stink, but I doubt it.

I'm sorry, but you don't put up those #s in the minors and then totally suck in the majors. Its not like Kennedy was putting up just ok #s, he dominated. The kid can pitch, we know that, he just needs some time to figure it out and stop getting the snot kicked out of him.

And therein lies the rub: Kennedy is obviously not going to learn anything by pitching in AAA, he can get those hitters out already. He needs to be pitching in the majors and learning on the job.

On the other hand, the team really can't afford to have Kennedy getting shellacked every 5 days, especially when the rest of your rotation has Dan Giese and Sidney Ponson in it.

So the Yanks are in a tough spot, and I suspect Kennedy will be given but one more start to "work it out" until Mr. Hughes gets his chance

Johan Santana and Carlos Pena don't enter into it. Nor does Jarrod Washburn, since I've never wanted him. Kennedy is what they've got, but that doesn't make his pitching any better. You're saying that if they leave him alone, you think he can develop into a 5.00 ERA fifth starter - which is also saying that, at this point, he's not even that.

I'll buy that he's had some bad luck. He's also had more than his share of bad pitching. I agree with the dilemma as Zack's laid it out: he's not been successful in the majors, but AAA doesn't help. I don't know what the answer is, but - as with Melky - pretending that he's fine doesn't help much either.

The fans truly will get the team that they deserve.

I mean, there's the groundballs Cano and Matsui hit to second when they pull off and then there are sharply hit groundballs. Shouldn't we factor this in as a metric of pitcher's performance?

So if you're looking at how "well struck" the balls were, last night at least Kennedy was extremely unlucky. Add in Torii Hunter's double, which hit Johnny Damon's glove, and you've got a recipe for a disastrous night.

All the evidence suggests that a pitcher with a BABIP above .325 will see some correction, and as a result his ERA will fall. Those studies never took into account how hard a ball was hit, and still showed significant results.

It wasn't a challenge.