Today’s news is powered by  . . . a little . . . Sabotage!

• Me and my friends and Wang Time!:

No matter how well Phil Hughes was pitching in their rotation, the Yankees knew they could not keep one of the winningest starters in the American League shackled in their bullpen for long. And so on Wednesday, they made the decision that they had been avoiding for the better part of a week.

The Yankees announced that Chien-Ming Wang will start Thursday afternoon’s game against the Rangers, pushing CC Sabathia back to Friday and knocking Hughes to the bullpen.

“I kind of knew something had to give eventually,” Hughes said. “With the way Wang’s been pitching out of the bullpen, he looks like he’s back to his normal stuff. That kind of leaves me as the odd man out.”

But he’s hardly out. Largely because Hughes struck out 21 batters and walked three over his final three starts — posting a 3.50 ERA during that span — the Yankees decided to keep him in the bullpen rather than option him to Triple-A.

[My take: I’d prefer he not take on the still-potent Rangers in the jetstream of the Stadium on a warm Spring afternoon, but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.]

• How is that Swisher for Betemit deal looking now?:

According to a tweet by MLB.com’s Noah Coslov, the White Sox will designate infielder Wilson Betemit for assignment before Thursday’s game and call up top prospect Gordon Beckham. Beckham was the eighth overall pick in the 2008 Draft, and hit .318/.372/.512 in 184 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A this year.

• Jesus Montero has indeed been promoted to Double-A.

• Jay Jaffe journalistically jousts on Joba jumping back to the pen:

That the bullpen is the Yankees’ bigger need is hardly all that clear. Though more expensive and better pedigreed than the staff’s other end, the Yanks’ rotation ranks seventh in the league in both SNLVAR and Fair Run Average. The bullpen is seventh in WXRL, and though their Fair Run Average is considerably higher than the starters’ (5.53 to 5.04, second-to-last in the league), much of the damage has been confined to low-leverage situations. Those 14 runs they yielded on April 18 once Wang departed trailing 8-2 meant little beyond mop-and-bucket duty for Nick Swisher in a game the Yankees could only lose once. Though a few of manager Joe Girardi‘s go-to guys—Jose Veras, Edwar Ramirez, and Jonathan Albaladejo—have been lousy, the skipper proved adept at weeding through his no-name relievers last year, and the team’s recent hot streak owed something to the emergence of similarly unheralded Phil Coke and Alfredo Aceves as viable late-inning options in the absence of top set-up man Brian Bruney.

Furthermore, Chamberlain leads the rotation in strikeout rate (8.6 per nine), ranking second in ERA (3.71) and third in Support-Neutral Winning Percentage (.532). Though he’s averaged just 5.3 innings per start (1.1 less than Burnett), that includes a line-drive-induced departure after just two-thirds of an inning. Excluding that jumps his average by a half-inning while nudging the Yankees above the league average in the percentage of innings thrown by starters (65 percent), so it’s tough to argue he’s putting an undue burden on the pen. At worst, he’s been the team’s third-best starter, far better than Hughes (5.45 ERA, .496 SNWP, and averaging a shade under five innings per start), all while being paced to toss around 150 innings to avoid the so-called Verducci Effect.

• Within an on-line chat, I also let Jay Jaffe step into the shoes of one major leaguer for a day.  Which one did he choose?:

. . . Such a tough choice. I’d love to drop a curveball like Kershaw, or to hit one a mile like Pujols, but you know, after 14 years of watching him – defensive shortcomings and all – I’m still fascinated by Derek Jeter. I’m proud of my own level of consistency in my field of expertise, not to mention my facility in the public spotlight, but I’d love to see what it feels like to take it to his exponentially higher level for one day. I mean, the guy just passed 2600 hits, and he’s hitting .319/.393/.474, and he makes it look so damn easy. How? Inquiring minds want to know.

• Happy 52nd birthday to Yankee coach Tony Pena.  Fun fact: He ended his career with 1,950 games behind the plate, fourth most all-time.
• A big happy 70th birthday to Phil Linz.  Linz was a utility infielder with the Yankees in the 1960s, and was the harmonica player in the infamous “Harmonica Incident” in 1964. Not a big home run hitter normally, he hit 2 homers in the 1964 World Series. The second one was off Bob Gibson in the 9th inning of the seventh game.
• On this date two years ago, we lost Clete Boyer at the age of 70.