Maybe old Moose has some life left, after all.
Yankees starter Mike Mussina showed last night that those ready to push him into retirement may be overreacting to the struggles he had late last season. The 39-year-old pitched six strong innings to earn his first victory of the season in last night’s 6-1 win over Tampa Bay.
Mussina allowed just two hits, one run in his second outing of the year, striking out three Rays and walking one.
The victory was the 251st of Mussina’s career, tying him with Bob Gibson for No. 42 on the all-time list. The season is only a week old but the question of whether Mussina could remain an effective starter seems answered.
While he wasn’t great in his first start against Toronto, he wasn’t terrible either.
Last night, he looked like the Mussina of old. His velocity never got out of the 80s, but he mixed in enough curveballs and changeups that dipped into the low 70s and high 60s to keep the Tampa hitters off-balance.
His only mistake came in the third inning against Jonny Gomes. Mussina threw him a 2-1 splitter that Gomes smoked into the left-field stands for a solo homer to cut the Yankees’ lead to 2-1. The hit did not rattle Mussina, though, who sat down eight of the next nine batters.
With his three strikeouts in the game, Mussina moved into a tie for 21st all-time on the career list with Yankee broadcaster David Cone.
Last season, Mussina went 11-10 with a 5.15 ERA and lost his spot in the rotation for a brief time in September. So far this season, those troubles appear to be in the past.
It is essential for the Yankees to have an effective Mussina. If he falters, the team may be forced to move Joba Chamberlain out of the bullpen and into the starting rotation, something that would wreck the end-of-game formula they’ve been using of Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera closing out games.