Sinking Sinkerballer: Should Yankees' Chien-Ming Wang Be Sent Down to AAA?

5.3 IP, 34.50 ERA, 23 hits allowed, 23 runs allowed, .622 BAA, six walks, two strikeouts.

Surely this all must be some sort of nightmare for New York Yankees fans.

As of this writing, Yankees sinkerballer Chien-Ming Wang was the primary culprit of the most recent bloodbath at the new Yankee Stadium, surrendering eight runs on eight hits in 1.1 innings of work.

With the way Wang has struggled early on, one can only wonder what the Yankees can do to fix this.

Over the past couple of starts, Wang has been tinkering with his delivery to find out exactly what he is doing wrong.

Problem is, the majors is not the place to work on this, especially when you're giving up eight runs per game—which begs the question of whether or not Wang should be sent down to the minors to fine-tune his mechanics.

Now you might say that the problem lies not just with Wang, but with the bullpen; after all, they have been giving up their (un)fair share of runs recently.

However, it's not the bullpen's fault that in 12 games so far, the starting rotation has gone six innings or longer only five times. A tired bullpen is an ineffective bullpen, and if the Yankees keep this up, then everyone in the 'pen will have blown their arms out come season's end.

Which brings us back to Wang.

With the way this season has played out so far, it's a no-brainer to send Wang down to AAA ball for a month or two.

Spending some time in Scranton will afford him the ability to slow down and work on his delivery with about a quarter of the pressure on him.

Instead of getting shelled for a ridiculous amount of runs every time out in the majors, Wang can still try to fix what is wrong in a lower level of competition while taking his time doing so.

In addition, it allows Phil Hughes to prove himself at the major league level once again. Hughes, who is widely regarded among Yankees brass as the most major-league ready pitcher to come up if needed, has been solid in AAA ball so far, going 2-for-0 in his two starts with a 2.31 ERA and 12 K's in 11.1 innings of work.

Sounds a whole lot better than Wang's pitiful season line so far.