Oh Kei...

Faithful reader(s), I have finally had the ::cringe:: pleasure of watching the Yankees newest Japanese import, Kei Igawa, pitch in a game against the Phillies yesterday.
First impressions? Eh.
His line, 5IP 3H 1ER 2BB 4K, looks excellent, and his spring ERA, 2.65, is also stellar. What scares the shit out of me is how he is going about compiling this ERA. I will only speak of yesterday, since not much data is available on spring training games for me to research. This needs to be changed, btw.
Anyway, yesterday, Igawa was 2-0 and 3-1 on more people than I care to think about. At one point, he got Chase Utley 0-2 only to throw a ball almost to the backstop in the process of getting the count to 3-2. The GOOD news is that Utley struck out in that at-bat. Further BAD news, though, is that the K was rang up on a defensive swing at a slider about shoulder-high.
Height appears to be Igawa's problem. Possessing an above average array of offspeed stuff, including a plus slider and change, Igawa had trouble yesterday (and in starts before that, if other blogs and game summaries are to be believed) getting the ball DOWN. For someone that only throws 88-90 mph at his hardest, anyone will tell you that it will be a problem.
On the plus side, he really has not been beaten up too badly at all this spring. In fact, yesterday, he was extraordinarily clutch, getting several key strikeouts when he needed them, including the aforementioned Utley and big Ryan Howard, on a similarly high slider. I don't know if there is a sabermetric stat for blind luck, but Igawa seems to be the league leader thus far.
In other news, how is Joe Torre going to justify keeping Brian Bruney, the official "Husky Yankee" (and subsequent Rough Justice favorite) off the team? While giving up no hits and no walks in his inning of work yesterday, Bruney struck out the side with an interesting combination of his power fastball, slider and something that looked like a change, or maybe a two-seam fastball. ERA stands at 1.50 on the spring. Come on, Joe, on those days where Farnsworth can't go, you're telling me you don't want to see the bald-headed beast that is Brian Bruney (hello, alliteration) trot in and blow some people away?
I have a theory on the whole Farnsworth last minute back problems. I believe, and I freely admit I have nothing but my own experience watching Yankee games to back this up, but it would SEEM that he comes down with these mysterious back problems when he is due to face the opposing lineup's big bats. Personally, I think he's gunshy.
Editor's Note: Igawa has walked 12 men in 17 innings this spring. Not fucking good. -RJ

-RJ