TAMPA — With one less choice to make now that A.J. Burnett is a Pirate, Joe Girardi’s decisions become clearer.
Yesterday, the manager indicated that Phil Hughes and Freddy Garcia would likely battle for the final spot in the rotation and the batting order and bullpen will look a lot like they did toward the end of last year.
“You hope everyone is throwing well and that you have to make a tough decision,” Girardi said. “You go with an open mind; CC [Sabathia] is the Opening Day starter and go from there. All these guys are expected to be starters. Phil Hughes pitched well in both areas, but we envision him as a starter. Once again, we have a six-man rotation and we’ve got to whittle it down to five.”
He was pleased Sabathia whittled down a bit in the offseason, and would like him to keep the weight off this year — something he couldn’t do in 2011 when he ended up pitching poorly down the stretch.
“I think it’s important he stays [at his current weight] or close to it,” Girardi said. “He fell off and we’ll try and hunt down the reasons. It could be the workload, could be the six-man rotation.”
And while there are some open spots in the bullpen, the later innings are fairly well-defined.
“When you look at our bullpen, we have guys who can do a couple of different jobs,” Girardi said. “[David Robertson] was our eighth-inning guy and [Rafael Soriano] was our seventh-inning guy and that worked out really well. I don’t necessarily have any ideas of making any changes.”
He also suggested keeping the top of the order pretty much intact from the final parts of 2011, when Robinson Cano was moved up to third, with Alex Rodriguez at cleanup and Mark Teixeira at No. 5.
“I’m not saying that’s what it’s going to be,” Girardi said. “It seems like we have some guys who can move around and can be productive. The greatest problem to have is a bunch of 3-4-5 [hitters] and figuring out where to put them. … I envision [Cano] hitting third and going from there.”
Girardi also sounded as if he was on board for the possible offensive additions of Raul Ibanez — who was getting his physical yesterday.
“[Ibanez is] a guy who’s hit right-handers very well and can still play the outfield,” Girardi said. “He has been a productive player.”
Eric Chavez also hasn’t been ruled out.
“I’m not so sure we wouldn’t make another move before position players report here,” Girardi said. “There’s still time [before then] and there’s still time after that. You always look for depth. If we can add some depth, we will.”
Girardi liked what he saw from Chavez in his injury-shortened season and he could be used again to give Rodriguez days off at third base, though the manager thinks Rodriguez can rebound from.
“I don’t know if he’ll hit 45 home runs,” Girardi said. “I expect him to be extremely productive. I don’t expect any falloff. If you were to take his numbers from before he hurt his knee in Chicago, they were pretty good. He was going to have a big year for us. He really never got on track after that.”