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WISHCASTING
If the Mariners trade Cliff Lee in the next 24 hours, the Yankees wouldn’t have to face him on Friday.

A FINE KETTLE OF FISH
Yesterday, I wrote about the Marlins making right-handed outfielder Cody Ross available to potential trading partners. Subsequently, it was reported that the Fish might also make 26-year-old closer Leo Nunez available as well. Nunez isn’t expensive by the standards of most teams, but he’s arbitration eligible and the Marlins don’t do arbitration unless literally forced to by the Commissioner and the players’ union. It’s a bit odd that their owner thinks they can win a pennant while not actually paying anyone but Hanley Ramirez, but that’s the way his mind apparently works -- hence the firing of Fredi Gonzalez.

Nunez,

It was the Yankees’ misfortune to suffer bad timing, to encounter Cliff Lee and Felix Hernandez, two of the best pitchers in baseball even if they are on a bad club, with two pitchers who were not up to matching their aces taking the mound in opposition. Since pitching seven shutout innings against the Tigers in his sixth start on May 12, Hughes has made eight starts, four of them quality, four of them factory rejects (there is no accepted term for a “not quality start,” but “irregular pants” or “mismatched socks” would do fine). His ERA for the period was threatening to crest the fragile barriers that hold the oily 5.00 water out at sea, and he finally did swamp the lowlands in tar against the M’s; his ERA since May 12 is now 5.33 in 49 innings.

MUCH ADO ABOUT SOMETHING: THE CULT OF THE VETERAN
Here’s a trivia question for you: Who was the Yankees’ opening day designated hitter in 1977? Here are some hints: It wasn’t Reggie Jackson; he played right field. It wasn’t Roy White; he played left. It wasn’t Lou Piniella; he didn’t play. Ready? It was Jimmy Wynn -- the Toy Cannon. He went 2-for-3 with a home run, too, the only run the Yankees would need in a 3-0 win over the Brewers.

Jimmy Wynn was 35 then. He was a heck of a player, though it’s sometimes hard to see that because he played in the 1960s and 70s, a time when offense was at a low ebb. In 1969, he hit .269/.436/.507 with 33 home runs and 148 walks. That’s roughly equivalent to hitting .305 with 40 home runs last year. He was

VICTORIOUS DEFEAT, DEFEATED VICTORY

Talk about your mixed outcomes. Josh Beckett hit the pitcher’s mound throwing bolts of lightning at the outset of Friday night’s game, and one felt certain that it was going to be a difficult night for the Yankees at Fenway Park. But the thunderstorm proved to be short-lived, Beckett giving up a three-run smash to Nick Swisher (or maybe a three-run swish to Nick Smasher), and then completely losing the plot in the sixth inning.

Simultaneously, Phil Hughes provided more evidence of his arrival as a man among men. Hughes has now thrown 224.2 Major-League innings, enough that we can pretend that he’s just completed his rookie year, even though it took him parts of three seasons and 77 games to compile the totals, which show 192 hits,

COFFEE JOE’S CANDOR
Credit Joe Girardi for coming clean in a way that was uncomfortable to watch in the aftermath of Sunday’s non-intentional walk to Kendry Morales. The good news for Girardi’s conscience is that the blast didn’t lose the game, it simply put it out of reach. The question is why he second-guessed his decision in the first place. Marte used to be the kind of lefty who could do more than spot work, but that doesn’t seem to be the case after his injuries. Morales, a switch-hitter, is a better hitter from the left side than the right, and normally you would want to turn him around. The forgoing should be inoperative when turning him around means letting him face a lefty who is no longer prepared to retire right-handed hitters regardless of their

I continue to spend much of my time at the local hospital, where my father is greatly improved but not yet out of the woods. As an older fellow with myriad health problems, my father is subject to a game of health dominoes: you take a severe blow to one system and all the others start breaking down. It’s like pulling at the bottom of a house of cards.

I’m there to keep him company, not watch baseball, but he’s sensitive to my work and my enthusiasms, and so he keeps offering. Unfortunately, the television in his room gets about 12 channels, none of them YES or the MLB network. He does get ESPN, but their attention to the only sport that matters has been intermittent as they’ve been dealing with the NFL draft, badminton, and other apparently pressing matters. Because

THE RIGHT STUFF
The Yankees made the best of a difficult choice in selecting Phil Hughes to be the fifth starter. The difficulty comes from both pitchers being promising young starters, both 24 this season, who have had Major-League success in the past. In an ideal world, the team would have room to put them both in the rotation and see who emerges -- not from 6.2 or 14 Spring Training innings -- but from a full season. However, once the Yankees made the entirely defensible decision to bet on a known quantity and re-sign the soon-to-be 38-year-old Andy Pettitte as well as grabbed the low-hanging fruit that was Javier Vazquez from the Braves, suddenly there was room for just one.

The results of Spring Training would normally be too small to inform such a significant decision, but when combined

EVERYONE COMPLAINS ABOUT THE WEATHER…
…But no one ever does anything about it. Phil Hughes may be thinking about that old line today. Thanks to Sunday’s rainout, the competition for the fifth starter’s spot was handicapped in Joba Chamberlain’s favor. With too many pitchers needing innings in too few games, Hughes drew the National League champion Phillies while Chamberlain got an improvised intrasquad game in which he faced such luminaries as Randy Winn, Jamie Hoffmann, and Reid Gorecki. Given that crowd, any performance less than dominance would have been a disappointment. I leave it to your judgment as to whether five innings, seven baserunners, two runs, and just one strikeout is appropriately encouraging. Joba’s lot may be to remain an enigma.

Hughes

With rain washing out today’s pertinent spring training action, this seemed like a good time to take stock of the fifth-starter competition with two friends and colleagues, Jay Jaffe of Futility Infielder and Baseball Prospectus and Cliff Corcoran of Bronx Banter.

STEVE: Given that Joba was averaging 91 MPH during Wednesday's start and his velocity was down last year as well, is it possible that we're no longer looking at a potential elite starter or am I jumping to conclusions?

JAY: It's probably a bit early to start worrying about any pitcher approaching maximum velocity at this stage of the spring, but the results (11 runs in 3.2 innings via two appearances) are certainly unsettling. That said, I think we're at the point that every minor variation in what Joba does relative