Sirhan Sirhan to the White Courtesy Phone, Sirhan Sirhan

Aaron Hill went down like he was swinging a sack of potatoes, belatedly waving at a plunging changeup. Lyle Overbay took big cuts at two changes in a row, retired on a second pitch that dove furiously at the dirt on the outside corner of the plate. Gregg Zaun took a strike, saw another coming, and then hung his head after dinking a weak grounder right at Wilson Betemit.

John McDonald and Reed Johnson looked no better an inning later, the former fooled badly on another nasty change. The latter swung over an 80 mph curveball placed perfectly on the outside lip of the plate, and Alex Rios didn't get nearly enough of a fastball, flying out to end the inning after Russ Adams walked.

In the seventh, the Big Hurt and his big friend, Matt Stairs, each popped out early in the count to bring up Hill again. Seeing the fastball far better this time around, he pulled a couple of pitches sharply foul, including a sure double off the wall, before drawing a walk. To do so, though, Hill had to stand and watch on 2-2 and 3-2 counts as a pair of fastballs missed narrowly high and inside, respectively. Overbay then lined out to the AL MVP to end the threat.

To that point, Yankees starting pitcher Ian Kennedy had thrown 88 pitches and allowed a single run, on a two-out Thomas double in the first inning that the Melk man should have made a play on. He'd allowed only that one hit. He'd struck out seven Blue Jays, and scared me shitless in the process.

Truth is, he's the hottest Kennedy since John-John and his muffin ass were bouncing around the Brown campus in those short shorts. Hey-yo!

The last thing we need the Yankees to turn up is another young, cheap, effective starter. In Kennedy, unfortunately, Brian Cashman may have just that. With a fastball that barely scrapes 90 and more starts in the Florida State League than MLB, he's an object of pure panic for me. He's got two wins in three late-season starts since being called up to replace the smoldering remains of Mike Mussina, and has looked impressive enough to compete for a rotation spot next spring.

This is not good. Phil Hughes and Chien-Ming Wang are locks for 2008 starting roles, and given the general level of dick-sucking we've seen from the media thus far, it's unthinkable that Dances With Beef Jerky and his four-pitch repertoire won't be given a shot at a slot in the rotation. Add in Pettitte or Mussina, and you've got a paid-for, cheap, and high-ceiling rotation that should improve considerably for the next, I don't know, five years.

I mean, fuck. I suppose we've been spoiled to some extent by the Yanks' profligate spending over the past five years, able to gloat as their hideous and obvious overspending mistakes played themselves out. We called Carl Pavano "The Money Pit"; we mocked the Rocket's per-start quota, rising as we speak. We laughed at the Big Unit's balky back, a condition no doubt aggravated by the wad of George Steinbrenner's money weighing down his trousers, and we indiscriminately cackled at the thought of Jaret Wright. Javy Vazquez, Kevin Brown ... lucky flukes like Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small aside, the Yanks' rotation has been the gift that keeps on giving.

Now, there was a chicken/egg problem here in that the Yanks were forced to pay for all these stiffs and clowns because they had no homegrown talent of their own, and most of their homegrown talent had, in fact, been affirmatively traded away to hire said stiffs. Without going back into whether or not that policy made sense, Cashman made a big deal several years back about changing tactics, and sure enough, he's stuck to his guns over the past few offseasons and trade deadlines, refusing to deal his studs and in fact picking up top prospects for guys like Gary Sheffield. Instead of ignoring the draft or wasting picks on glamour boys like Drew Henson, the Yanks starting using their money to pay for above-slot talent in the draft. Then, they hung onto it.

This is where Kennedy, taken 21st overall in the '06 draft, comes in. I was really hoping the Yanks had guessed wrong on him, and there were plenty of reasons to think they had. Kennedy was one of the hottest college prospects in the country after his sophomore year at USC, when he was a First Team All-American, went 12-2 with a 2.54 ERA (117 IP, 1.02 WHIP, 158 K, fourth on the Trojans' single-season list behind a couple of Mark Prior's all-time great seasons); then, he more or less tanked his junior year, going 5-7 with a 3.90 ERA and far less impressive peripherals.

Given his repertoire and build (6-foot righty with no heat), he didn't project especially well into the bigs. He looked pretty good, but no more, in two summers with the USA National Team, and there was every chance that his sophomore year had been somewhat fluky. And after signing with Scott Boras, there was a 100 percent chance that someone was going to overpay for the chance to find out whether his stuff would a) return and b) translate against MLB hitters. I was actually really happy when he fell to the Yanks, thinking they had just thrown a ton of money at the next Tim Stauffer.

Well, the early indications on his stuff are highly positive. His professional control has been exceptional, for one thing. But more importantly, his changeup has looked just outstanding -- it hovers right around 79 mph, giving him a solid differential from his fastball, and it moves like the dickens. Thursday night alone, he moved it in all three directions, with bite on some of these tosses that looked almost Pedro-like. It's clearly a big-league out pitch.

Now, the problem isn't that he's going to turn into the next Mussina, although that might be his ceiling, and the problem isn't necessarily that a rotation of Hughes-Wang-Chamberlain-Kennedy-Pettitte is unbeatable, although it's pretty dangerous. It's that the Yankees already have enough advantages; every addition option they have can only cause trouble.

When the Bombers have prospects, they can deal them to suckers. If Phil Hughes is untouchable, fine -- does a package of Kennedy, the Melk Man, Jose Tabata and $5 million pry Johan Santana away from Minnesota? Why not?

When the Bombers don't have to spend money on Pavano, they can spend it on position players. $15 million they don't blow on free agent pitchers is $15 million they toss on Andruw Jones.

When the Bombers don't have to spend money on Clemens, they can put it into the $45 million package they're going to need to give A-Rod if they want him to stay.

All of which is to say that Ian Kennedy's emergence is a thoroughly unattractive development, and should be regarded as highly pernicious. Most teams are going to land a fat Nebraskan freak every once in a while, but every first-round draft pick the Yanks connect with is another blow to freedom.

Torre blew it Thursday, taking Kennedy from the game (to a nice ovation from the Canuck crowd) after he walked Zaun to start the eighth. Vizcaino got out of it, but since using Mo in a tie game on the road is apparently verboten, the entrance of Vizcaino meant the ninth would belong to Chris Britton (?), and the Big Hurt knocked in the winning run before an out had been recorded. Solid work from Joe.

And Kennedy aside, we should be good for a while with the Yanks' first-round picks for a while. Hey-yo!