Chad Green Back On Yankees' Staff

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Published on July 21 2016 3:02 pm
Last Updated on July 21 2016 3:47 pm
Written by Millie Lange

By Nick Suss

MLB.com

Chad Green's rookie season has been an interesting one.

His time spent in the Minors has been spectacular, where he's the Triple-A International League's leader in both ERA (1.41) and WHIP (0.90). But his time in the Majors has been complicated, as he's been asked to wear a variety of different hats. He's started, he's worked out of the bullpen, and he's even been asked to hit a couple of times.

Thursday morning, Green was called up yet again, his fourth callup of the season.  As a counter-move, the Yankees optioned Nick Goody to Triple-A. But this time, Green said he's not even sure what what he's going to be asked to wear. Green said upon arriving that he had "no clue" whether he was going to be starting or coming out of the bullpen this time around. And though Yankees manager Joe Girardi gave an answer to the question, he eventually wavered on how concrete his plan is.

"He's in there for the bullpen," Girardi said. "Without having Dellin Betances today, we wouldn't have Nick Goody, Anthony Swarzak is limited. We felt we needed a right-handed reliever that could either give us distance or give us some shortness."

That said, Girardi conceded that there is a chance that if Green isn't used Thursday he and the staff would discuss starting him Friday. The reasoning behind that is Masahiro Tanaka, Friday's scheduled starter, and his splits on four days' rest versus five-or-more days' rest. Friday would be a start on four days' rest for Tanaka, a span in which he's psoted a 5.33 ERA this season. On long rest, Tanaka has been borderline unhittable, posting a 1.70 ERA and a WHIP of 0.89.

With that in mind, Girardi said that the idea will be "kicked around." But moving to a six-man rotation as the Yankees would be saddled with doing for a couple of days if Green made as spot start, is a huge pain on roster construction.

Meanwhile, Chad was back in action Thursday, pitching in relief in the Yankees' 4-1 loss to Baltimore. He worked 2-1/3 scoreless innings, allowing two hits and no walks with one strikeout.