What's Wang with Chien Ming?

There seems to be a whole mess of things that are hampering the performance of the once reliable righty. The laundry list of things for Wang and the Yankees to ponder include poor mechanics, lack of velocity, and lack of confidence. In three starts he has allowed 23 runs on 23 hits in just 6 innings. He has walked 6 batters while striking out only 2. His ERA for the year stands at 34.50 and he has a WHIP of 4.833. These numbers are truly staggering and the Yankees are extremely concerned about what to do with the struggling pitcher.

Courtesy of Yankees.com, here's Joe Giradi's take on the situation:

Girardi and his staff met on Sunday morning to discuss the possibility of skipping that start, which they could do without shifting anyone out of turn thanks to an off-day on Thursday. But they have not yet addressed the issue with Wang, and have not yet come to a final decision.

"We have had a lot of healthy discussion over this morning," Girardi said.

"We looked at a lot of video. We looked at where his hands were, the height of his leg kick, where his head is, if it's on line, the angle of his arm. We looked at everything. We just haven't had a chance to discuss it with him yet."

The Yankees and Wang both insist that he's completely healthy, despite the fact that his velocity in Saturday's game rested in the high 80s and low 90s -- a noticeable tick lower than the mid-90s sinkers he was firing throughout his two 19-win seasons. Girardi is not worried about Wang possibly tipping his pitches, because he has always thrown such a high percentage of sinkers.

Hitters usually knew what was coming, but they couldn't hit it anyway.

[My Take: The Yankees must find a way to allow Wang to work out the kinks without hurting his team any further. They cannot send him down to the minors as Wang is out of options. They could place him on the 15 day DL, while he doesn't seem to be physically injured, his psyche surely has to be hurting right now. Lastly, they could send him to the bullpen to become the long man and callup Phil Hughes, until Wang is able to regain his form. Either way, Wang's next start (in Boston) will probably be skipped as the rest of the rotation will not be affected because of Thursday's off day. The Yankees have their work cut out with this one and they better come up with a solution. You just simply cannot have a guy in your rotation who is an automatic loss each and every time he takes the mound.]

-Favad Ali