I know it’s one inning on the first day of Spring Training. I know that pitchers use Spring Training to hone their pitchers and refine their mechanics. But here goes: Kei Igawa entered today’s Yankee game against the University of South Florida in the sixth inning of a game in which USF had manage just one base runner. Igawa gave up two walks, hit a batter, threw a wild pitch and surrendered a Grand Slam. Why the Yanks declined to trade him when they could, I have yet to understand.

Meanwhile, here’s the first boxscore of the season. Soak it up; it’s a good one. The Big Three went a combined five innings, allowing one hit and striking out six. Jorge wasted his one triple of the year on a Spring Training game against a college team, and A-Rod drove in three runs. Baseball is back.

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The understatement of the Hot Stove League may be the headline on a La Velle E. Neal III article from Saturday. It asks, “Twins softening demands for Santana?”

Now, on the surface, that seems like a legitimate question to ask, but when you look at what Neal wrote, the answer is glaringly obviously yes.

For instance, indications earlier in the off-season were that the Twins wanted the Yankees to include righthanded pitching prospect Ian Kennedy in a package led by prized young righthander Phil Hughes and center fielder Melky Cabrera. Now it’s believed that the Twins are willing to accept other players instead of Kennedy. Recent reports have righthander Jeff Marquez as part of the deal.

Lefthander Kei Igawa, who floundered to a 2-3 record and 6.25 ERA in his first year after arriving from Japan, also has been mentioned in talks with the Yankees, perhaps as a fourth player in the package. His salary — $4 million annually over the next four seasons — shouldn’t be a problem for a club whose payroll would drop under $50 million if Santana is traded.

Any time you can get a team to drop its demands from Ian Kennedy to Kei Igawa, the demands are most definitely softening. While I still don’t want to see the Yanks shell out all of the prospects for one year of Santana, I would certainly get a good laugh out of things if Kei Igawa ends up being the missing fourth piece for the Twins.

If Bill Smith actually knew what he were doing, he would have laughed the Yankees out of the room when Kei Igawa’s name came up. Or he could said, “No way. No how. Not interested.” But if we’ve learned one thing this off-season, it’s that Bill Smith isn’t exactly the most confident of General Managers.

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Roger Clemens is scratched again. Kei Igawa is pitching. Thanks to Pete Abraham for breaking it to us.

I really don’t want to watch this game tonight.

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With the Yanks and Padres facing a 2 p.m. deadline to complete a deal, Buster Olney is reporting that the Yanks plan to withdraw the disappointing Kei Igawa from waivers. While most talent evaluators feel Igawa won’t succeed in the AL and is a better fit for a team like the Padres and a park like Petco, the Yanks aren’t quite yet ready to give up on a pitcher in which they invested $26 million in posting fees. I think the Yanks should just cut their losses, but so be it as long as Igawa doesn’t get starts next year over Ian Kennedy or Joba Chamberlain.

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Kei Igawa, the most disappointing Yankee pitcher since Carl Pavano, may be donning the San Diego fatigues soon. According to numerous reports such as this one on ESPN.com, the Padres, who tried to acquire Igawa in July, have put a waiver claim on the lefty. The Yanks hope to acquire relief pitching for Igawa who is just 2-3 with an ERA a tad under 7.00. Let’s hope the Yanks can make this happen.

Update by Mike: I was just thinking…the Pads recently DFA’ed old friend Boomer Wells, would anyone be down with an Igawa-for-Boomer deal? If nothing else, it gives us a starter to cover Clemens’ start on Tuesday without having to finagle the 40-man roster or throw Jeff Karstens out there. Maybe he could even suck it up and serve as a lefty out of the ‘pen for the rest of the year. Random musings on my part…

Update by Ben: Joe and I were talking about Mike’s suggestion late last week when the Padres DFA’d Wells. Wells, we noted, is persona non grata in the Bronx following the 2003 World Series and comments Boomer made upon leaving New York. He’s not coming back. But he also wouldn’t be a bad influence on Hughes or Chamberlain as someone noted in the comments. If anything, Wells is a bit of a buffoon off the field but on the field, he’s always been a top competitor.

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We’re hearing word that Kei Igawa has been sent down to the 7th circle of Hell the Minors and Chris Basak is up.

If true - and I’ll post a link when we can confirm it - Basak is a short-term solution. He’ll be here filling a hole until the Yanks activate Phil Hughes next week.

No one in the Bronx will miss Kei Igawa.

Update: Newsday’s Kat O’Brien has visual confirmation that Kei and his interpretor were packing their bags today.

Update 2: The Star Ledger’s Ed Price has a great quote from the departing Igawa. “I’m going to continue hard at Triple-A,” he said.”Each time I pitch, I’m learning more about what it takes to become a consistent pitcher on this league.” I guess he’s a bit of a slow learner.

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As tonight’s game came to a close, one of our popular search terms this evening was “Kei Igawa sucks.” And you know what, Google users? You’re absolutely right. Kei Igawa sucks.

Against the Royals tonight, Kei Igawa, obviously, ended up on the wrong end of a 7-0 game. Igawa threw 102 pitches in 5.2 innings en route to an ugly line of 5.2-7-5-5-2-5. After this game, he stands at 2-3, his last win coming in relief on April 28. He’s inexplicably thrown 68 Major League innings with terrible results. His ERA stands at 6.79, and he’s given up 80 hits and 34 walks. There’s no question that Tyler Clippard, now at AA, and Matt DeSalvo could have turned in 68 innings of better quality than Igawa.

After tonight’s start, it’s clear that Kei Igawa has no place in the Major League rotation. Phil Hughes is ready to go; Joba Chamberlain, who started the year at A ball, doesn’t seem too far behind; and on Saturday, we’ll see how far away Ian Kennedy is when he makes his first AAA start.

Yet, despite the obvious situation, some of you are rightly concerned that, with Phil Hughes making one last rehab start on Sunday, the Yankees will allow Kei Igawa to make another big league start. Worry not. The off day on Monday saves us from that debacle. Take a look:

Friday: Andy Pettitte
Saturday: Roger Clemens
Sunday: Chien-Ming Wang
Monday: Day Off
Tuesday: Another day in which I have to suffer through a Mike Mussina start at the Stadium
Wednesday: Andy Pettitte, on normal rest
Thursday: Roger Clemens, on normal rest
Friday: The Return of Phil Hughes Halleujah.

So there ya go. Phil Hughes will start on normal rest on Friday and no one, except for Kei Igawa, is worse off. Don’t let door hit you on the way out, Kei. Or on second thought, let it hit. Good bye.

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Nothing warms my heart better than typing the next three words: Great win tonight. The Yanks overcame Roy Halladay and Kyle Farnsworth to win a thrilling game. They shaved a game off the Red Sox lead and held steady in the Wild Card. Things are clicking.

Today, I would like you all to reserve the Kyle Farnsworth insults for the comments on this post. Instead, as Phil Hughes prepares for another Minor League rehab start, let’s talk about what Brian Cashman said yesterday afternoon.

As Peter Abraham noted last night, the Yanks’ GM spoke a bit about Kei Igawa’s spot on the rotation as Phil Hughes’ return comes closer. Cashman claims that Kei Igawa has been hurt by his irregular spot in the rotation and that Hughes has nothing guaranteed. “Until he’s ready it’s not something we have to consider. He’s not guaranteed anything,” Cashman told the Yanks’ reporters.

Now, let’s get one thing straight: Phil Hughes will always be a better pitching option than Kei Igawa. Kei Igawa won’t magically stop giving up home runs if he starts getting on a regular work schedule. He won’t find a way to make 115 pitches last 8 innings instead of 5 innings, and he won’t magically find a way to get out Major League hitters.

That being said, Brian Cashman here is doing his job as General Manager. He isn’t going to throw Igawa to the wolves even though we know Igawa will end up with the wolves if Hughes returns healthy and ready to go. He can’t say that, yes, Kei Igawa has just two more starts left in the Bronx this year. Considering that Kei Igawa is under contract for four more years, the Yanks won’t be as tactless as to cut him loose now.

Plus, as Abraham later noted, no 21-year-old is ever guaranteed a spot in the rotation based upon his work in 10.2 Major League innings. We know what Hughes can do; we saw it in Texas on the night his hamstring popped. For now, Hughes doesn’t automatically get that spot.

But know this, readers: Phil Hughes will be back in the Yankee rotation if he aces his last two rehab tests. Cashman will be on hand today in Trenton, and if Phil delivers the goods, as I expect him to, Cashman will say to himself at least that Igawa is gone. So don’t despair; Cashman is simply tending to his sheep. As the Yankees’ shepherd, that’s his job.

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The Toronto Blue Jays are a pretty potent offensive team. They’re tenth in OPS and eighth overall in home runs hit. But those numbers shoot up when they face a lefty. Against southpaws this season, the Blue Jays are downright brutal. With a .293/.364/.470 line, the team is third overall in OPS vs. lefties.

So who are the Yankees sending up against a team that seemingly struggles with right-handed pitching? Not any righty farm hand who has a good chance of shutting them down. No, tonight, they are going with their lefty specialist Kei Igawa. Kei, who in an alternate universe, is a good pitcher, stands as good a chance as any at getting utterly shelled tonight. Let’s review.

When last we saw Mr. Igawa, I noted that the Yanks were winning in spite of Igawa’s contribution. Since he hasn’t pitched in over 10 days, things haven’t really gotten any better for his season numbers. I wrote then:

Specifically, Igawa has thrown 16 innings, surrendering 17 hits while walking 9 and striking 12. He’s given up 3 home runs and has retired just 14 batters via the ground ball as opposed to 21 via the fly ball. He pitches like a disaster waiting to happen, and it’s only a matter of time before he gets pounded for an ungodly number of runs in, say, 1.2 innings.

And so this is the Igawa that will stride to the mound in Yankee Stadium tonight at 7:05 p.m. to face a lineup of Blue Jays who devour lefty pitching. Tonight could really be that night that he’s out after 1.2 innings never to return to the Bronx.

Now, for the Yanks’ sake, I hope that’s not true. They’re above .500 for the first time in over three weeks. They’ve trimmed a few games off of Boston’s lead this weekend and stand a manageable nine games out of first and eight games behind Cleveland, the Wild Card leader. They won, in dicey fashion, three out of four in Tampa Bay and now need to manage a 17-7 record over their next 24 games to meet our expectations of 20-8 against sub-.500 teams to start the second half.

A decent start tonight by Igawa would probably mean 5 IP and 4 ER. The Yanks are facing Josh Towers, a righty in the Blue Jays’ rotation only because no one else has worked out. I expect this to be a game decided by the bullpens, and I hope the Yanks can keep up their post-All Star Break winning ways. But with Kei Igawa on the mound, it’s tough to be optimistic.

A bad start would exile him from New York. A good start would be great for the Yanks as a team but bad overall because Igawa would inevitably get rewarded with another start. Tonight, we’ll see what happens.

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That win today, it was a good one. Hideki Matsui, batting clean-up, utterly crushed a 3-1 offering from Pat Neshek to give the Yanks a lead they wouldn’t give up. And with that blow, the Yanks took 3 out of 4 in a must-win series for the Bombers.

But the real story of today wasn’t the win or Kyle Farnworth’s fourth 1-2-3 inning of the season. The real story was yet another incredibly bad outing from Kei Igawa. Down 2-0 before the Yanks had a chance to bat, Igawa would later cough up a three-run lead. Torre pulled the Japanese bust after five innings, and for once, going to the bullpen was the right move.

Since returning to the Yankees rotation from Minor League purgatory, Igawa has gone 0-1 with 6.19 ERA. Sadly, that’s an improvement from his pre-demotion tenure on the Yanks. While the Yanks have gone 2-1 in his three starts, the credit belongs to the offense as they’ve scored 14 runs in the two wins (and were one-hit in the loss).

Specifically, Igawa has thrown 16 innings, surrendering 17 hits while walking 9 and striking 12. He’s given up 3 home runs and has retired just 14 batters via the ground ball as opposed to 21 via the fly ball. He pitches like a disaster waiting to happen, and it’s only a matter of time before he gets pounded for an ungodly number of runs in, say, 1.2 innings.

So what should the Yanks do? With Phil Hughes still a few weeks out, the Yanks’ options are limited. They could keep Igawa in the rotation, and they do seem to be leaning toward giving him at least one more start. They could dip back into the farm system and call up Steven White.

What they won’t do, however, is what we would all love to see happen if just for the novelty of it: The Yankees will not call up Joba Chamberlain. This afternoon, I debated whether or not to post a piece calling for his Bronx debut. He is, after all, making mince meat of AA hitters, and he has the psychological make-up to make the most of a Big League call up. But being cautious right now is the right choice. There’s no need to rush a potential top-line starter this season.

For now, then, we’re stuck with our expensive waste of money. While some of us have clamored for Igawa’s release, the Yanks have options on the ineffective lefty and owe him a pretty penny over the next few seasons. He won’t go anywhere, but the team will try to minimize the damage he may do at the Big League level. And with Hughes on the horizon, all we have to do is hold out a few more weeks. It can’t be all that bad, right?

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