Pennant-race pressure sends managers scrambling

The Yankees can't afford to have Mike Mussina pitching the way he has in recent weeks. They will look to other options for now. Winslow Townson/SI

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The desperation, all around the grand old game, is beginning to set in. The fear is starting to rise. You can see it in the faces and in the wild swings. You can hear it in the screams from the dugout. You can check it out daily in the lineup cards. You can almost taste it.

A little like chicken, I hear.

With fewer than five weeks remaining in the regular season, and with about half the teams either with a division lead or with a fair chance at the wild card (and by fair, I'm saying six games or closer to either the wild-card or the division lead), managers are showing that they're willing to do just about anything to keep their teams in the running.

Take Joe Torre, for example. The Yankees' skipper decided on Tuesday to pull one-time ace Mike Mussina from the rotation. Mussina, as we all know, has been just awful lately. Beyond awful, really. Like a 17.69 ERA in his past three starts awful. "I really don't feel like I can do much of anything right," he said after his last blowup.

With the Red Sox running away in the American League East and the Yanks' wild-card hopes growing more distant by the day, Torre needs a solution to the Mussina morass. Yet the answer he has come up with seems more like a back-alley throw of the dice: He's replacing Mussina, a 247-game winner, with rookie Ian Kennedy, a first-round draft pick just last year. Kennedy will make his debut on Saturday against the Devil Rays.

If the Yanks can't trust Mussina against the last-place Rays, if they'd rather drop a 22-year-old rookie into the heat of a playoff drive ... wow, that is desperate.

Torre could be yanking Mussina for just one start. No one knows for sure. Or the Yanks could simply juggle the rotation if Kennedy lays a stinker on Saturday. They have two off-days before Sept. 11, which could enable them to skip that spot in the rotation for a start or two. Still, going with a strict four-man rotation the rest of the way is unlikely. Torre can't afford to over-tax veterans Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte by asking them to go on short rest, and he doesn't want to overwork rookie Phil Hughes.

The Yanks, as the fans in New York know, are in desperate straits. But they're not the only ones:

• Atlanta's Bobby Cox, struggling to keep his team in the National League wild-card race, decided to go with ace John Smoltz on short rest Tuesday night against the Marlins. The manager is trying to split up Smoltz and fellow ace Tim Hudson so the team's beleaguered bullpen won't be overused for the three straight days that those two don't pitch. Cox also wanted to juggle the rotation so Smoltz would be available for a critical series this weekend against the East-leading Mets. Smoltz pitched well on Tuesday but the Braves still lost, 4-3, in extra innings.

• Earlier this month Dodgers righty Brad Penny went to manager Grady Little and asked to pitch on short rest. "We're running out of time," Penny told reporters at the time. "Whatever I can do, I'm going to go out and do." He pitched well enough on Aug. 19 against the Rockies, and the Dodgers won (though Penny wasn't involved in the decision). In his next outing, though, he took a loss against the Mets. The Dodgers have even less time now.

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