Yankee fans all around the Yankee Universe were rejoicing and celebrating Jesus Montero’s home run for Scranton Wilkes-Barre that won the game for the team in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Yankee fans on Twitter were calling for the call-up of Montero on September 1st with tweets including #JesusIsComing. But the Yankees have another player that could have more of a shot of being called up than Montero and he’s been in the major leagues before.
Kei Igawa was looking like an ace in his Triple-A start in place of Tim Redding who has left the Yankees for a Korean baseball team. Igawa was scoreless through 5.2 innings and was in control at all times.
In fact, out of all of Igawa’s pitches only 15 were balls. The rest were strikes. He struck-out seven and only allowed six hits.
A few years back, the Yankees signed Igawa to be their response to the Daisuke Matsuzaka signing in Boston. Neither one of these signings was all that great, but the Yankees looked like the biggest losers in the end. Igawa was a failure in the major leagues, but he does have one great memory with a win against the Red Sox.
When all is said and done, Igawa may have been one of the stronger pitchers in Japan. Then he became one of the weakest in New York, but a minor star in Scranton.
This could be Igawa’s start to a return to the majors and he could come as a surprise. The popular prediction is that Igawa is just catching fire, but in the majors this may only be equivalent to a spark.
The Yankees could call him up on September 1st to possibly let him make a final few appearances in pinstripes. The Yankees will probably look to get rid of him somehow, but he’s signed with the team until 2012. He is arbitration eligible after the 2011 season. There are probably only a few fans that will miss Igawa, and by few I mean a handful.
Final Note: Igawa was able to get Carlos Delgado out in the Scranton win. Delgado is considered by many to be a Canadian baseball great, but he’s past his prime. Nothing really to cheer about, just a note on another former big leaguer trying to make a come-back.
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