Carl Pavano Might Pitch This Weekend

This morning in my weekly recap of baseball action, I joked that the Yankees missing the playoffs might bring about Armageddon. When I finished it (around three o'clock this morning), I had assumed it was a joke. Now, I'm not so sure. Word out of New York today is that the Yankees need a starter next Saturday and that the top candidate for the start is one Carl Anthony Pavano.

Today in his blog, Peter Abraham notes that Pavano's rehab assignment is over and the Yankees have to either call him up or make an excuse to extend his rehab. Given Pavano's decent work on his rehab assignment and Philip Hughes struggling on his own rehab trail, putting Pavano in the rotation might actually be the best option for the Yankees. That's not a typo or a joke. The team with the $209 million payroll might have no recourse but to lean on Carl Pavano, he of 19 major league starts since 2004, in crunch time.

Of course, this is all predicated on Pavano not injuring himself between now and Saturday. He might stub his toe in the airport, fall in the shower, or try to throw a baseball and have his elbow explode. But if he does make it, he'll join the bottom end of a Yankees rotation that already includes Sidney Ponson and Darrell Rasner. That five-game deficit in the Wild Card race might as well be a million.