Yankees Pitching: A Bleak Outlook for the 5th Spot?

Local KFCs are stocking up.

It looks like the Yankee’s best option for a fifth starter may be Bartolo Colon.  Yes, you read that correctly:  Bartolo Colon.   I know what you must be thinking; You can just picture the World Series matchups now.  Roy Halladay vs. Fat Yankees’ starter number 1.  Cliff Lee vs Fat Yankees’ starter number 2 and so on.  Sabathia had to cut out his daily Captain Crunch binge just so the Yanks could make weight on team flights.  However, the Yankees have had their fair share of success with slightly overweight hurlers (David Wells circa 1998).  Colon is fresh off a two-hit, one-run, six-inning performance against Tampa in which he struck out five and walked none.  Through 15 innings this spring Colon has allowed only four runs on 10 hits, and is rocking a 17 to one strikeout to walk ratio.  While spring training numbers are like looking at a wonder bra, fun to look at but they can be deceiving,  there is still cause for hope.   The Yankees are chock full of young pitching.  Some think that Manny Banuelos will soon be the ace of the staff.  The Yankees have several other young prospects in Ivan Nova, Dellin Betances, and Andrew Brackman.  Who knows, maybe Joba Chamberlain will even make a pit stop at Yankee Stadium in between KFC runs.  It’s not like the Yankees haven’t done it with young (see Pettite, 1996) or inexperienced  (Hernandez, 1998) before.  Yankees fans can keep letting Phillies fans think we care about losing the Cliff Lee sweepstakes. And don’t think for one second we didn’t notice that all Adrian Gonzalez’ numbers will do is replace the departed Adrian Beltre.  New York is still the true beast in east.