Free-spending Yankees have no set-up man to bail them out

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The math isn't working for me, but since New Yorkers are smarter than everyone else, maybe it works for them. So ... a little help from our New York contingent? Please?

Because for the life of me, I can't figure out how the Yankees have one of the biggest payrolls in the history of U.S. professional sports, yet they have only three pitchers good enough to start in the postseason -- and they have zero set-up men.

None.

Don't give me Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain. Don't even think about it. You give me Hughes and Chamberlain, and I'll give you Game 5 of the American League Championship Series. Hughes and Chamberlain? Please. They're not set-up men. They're the failed starters who were stashed in the bullpen at various points this season and who folded under the postseason pressure Thursday night, when the Angels won 7-6 to force Game 6 on Saturday at Yankee Stadium.

Mike Stanton and Jeff Nelson, they're not. And never will be. They might not even be relievers after this season, though in the mysterious world that is Yankees baseball -- where the only thing that makes sense is the correlation between payroll and regular-season victories -- that remains to be seen.

What we know is this: Phillip Hughes was considered the Yankees' best pitching prospect in years, an ace big league starter waiting to happen, until he got to New York and the pressure or the pitching coach or Joe Torre or somebody screwed him up. And by that time, he was no longer the Yankees' best pitching prospect in years.

That title had been ceded to Joba Chamberlain, who was so talented and so important that the organization instituted the Joba Rules, which have worked out so well that the Yankees have stuffed Chamberlain back into the bullpen and felt the need to start their $160 million investment, CC Sabathia, on three days' rest once in this ALCS. And the Yankees probably will do it to Sabathia twice more in the World Series, assuming two things: that they finish off the Angels in Game 6, and that the World Series goes seven games.

But the point today is not the Yankees' inability to develop Hughes and Chamberlain into front-line starters, or even serviceable starters. The point isn't that the Yankees have a $201 million payroll and only three starting pitchers deemed worthy of a postseason start.

No, the point is this: The Yankees have the biggest payroll in baseball and, in addition to having the smallest rotation in baseball, they also lack a nail-down set-up man. There is no Nelson or Stanton or, dating to 1996, Rivera (who set up John Wetteland). There is no anybody. How can that happen? Maybe someone in the New York media, a tough group when it's not serenading the genius that is Yankees GM Brian Cashman, can ask Cashman how he spent 50 percent more money than any franchise in either league -- think about that -- and failed to produce a set-up man worthy of the October stage.

Phillip Hughes? He was worthy of the July stage. I'll give you that. After failing as a starter -- he was 3-2 with a 5.45 ERA in eight starts -- he was stashed in the bullpen, where it worked out. In July, that is. And even in August and September. But there's a difference between working out as the emergency set-up man for the loaded Yankees in the regular season, where New York won the AL East by eight games, and working out as the set-up man in the postseason.

And Hughes is not working out in the postseason.

Jeff Nelson's not walking through that bullpen gate, and neither is Mike Stanton. Derek Jeter is stuck with Phil Hughes. (US Presswire)

He has made six appearances, and he has been hit every time. In 4 2/3 total innings sprinkled ineffectively among those six appearances, Hughes has given up nine hits -- that's two per inning, which is not good -- and two walks and three earned runs. And that doesn't include the inherited runners he has allowed to score, most egregiously Thursday night when he replaced Damaso Marte with two outs in the seventh and a runner on third and a 6-5 Yankees lead. By the time he recorded that single out to end the inning, Hughes had lost the runner and the lead and, in the official scorer's book, the game.

"It's on my shoulders," Hughes said, "and that's very disappointing."

Yankees manager Joe Girardi says he still has confidence in Hughes, but he also says he understands there's a difference between setting up in September and October.

"This is the time of year that everything gets tougher," Girardi said, "but we like [Hughes'] stuff and we believe he'll get it done."

Of course he does. What else is Girardi going to say -- that he's going to replace Hughes in the set-up role with Joba Chamberlain? Nobody would buy that, because Chamberlain has been even more hittable this postseason than Hughes. Which is almost statistically impossible. But it's true. In 2 2/3 innings spread over six appearances, Chamberlain has allowed seven hits, including two hits in one-third of an inning Thursday night, an outing that required closer Mariano Rivera to enter the game with one out in the eighth and work his magic to keep the Yankees within a run. For those keeping score at home, Chamberlain's postseason line equates to almost as many hits allowed (seven) as outs recorded (eight). And that's awful.

But that's the Yankees' bullpen. It's Mariano Rivera and a whole lot of hoping that their three starters can go eight innings -- or, failing that, that their failed young starters don't blow it as the bridge between the starter and the closer.

Chamberlain says he has unshaken faith in himself and Hughes.

"We'll get it done," he said. "Tonight, Phil was unable to get out of the situation he was put in, but he'll be better for it."

Hughes will be better? Well, I believe he will. Really, I do.

Because after their first six postseason appearances, neither Hughes nor Chamberlain can get much worse.