New developments on the ailments of Ivan Nova:
OFFICIAL: @Yankees RHP Ivan Nova diagnosed with inflammation in his right rotator cuff, placed on 15-day DL.
The injury would help explain why Nova has pitched so poorly in his sophomore campaign. After a surprising 3.70 ERA, 116 ERA+ campaign in 2011, Nova's 2012 has been awful. He's given up more hits than anyone in the league (179, 10.2 H/9), and his ERA ballooned to 4.92 (85 ERA+). The 25 homers surrendered also jumped his FIP up from 4.01 in '11 to 4.54 in '12. Hopefully, Nova just needs some rest and he can return to at least league average form. He will not even play catch for five days.
Chad Jennings of LoHud thinks that this bit of news is the move that the Yankees made to bring activate ace CC Sabathia for his Friday start. David Phelps, who was filling in for CC, will now fill in for Nova. The rookie righthander has done a tremendous job for the team so far in 2012, pitching to a 2.69 ERA and 156 ERA+ in 63.2 innings (both marks are third on the pitching staff among players with 40 innings). None of his five starts have been bad at all, so it's good to see him get an extended look. He's been very valuable to the team, which has coped with numerous pitching injuries this year.
This news also pretty much affirms that Joba Chamberlain is staying for now despite previous rumors suggesting otherwise. Joba did not necessarily need to go, but if he's going to stay up here, the Yankees should try as hard as they can to pitch him in low-leverage roles until he improves. He just had major surgery and returned to the mound for the first time since last June, so it was highly unlikely that he was going to be vintage Joba right away. If he is given the chance to work through it, he could return to full strength soon.