Chin Ming Wang has been absolutely dreadful this year and one has to ask oneself why. How does a pitcher who 46-15 over the previous 3 years pitches so poorly.
Here is my theory: Guy has terrible foot injury in the middle of 2008 season after pitching very well to an 8-2 start. Tries to come back and feels tentativeness in his foot when driving off it landing on it because of prior injury. This causes 2 things: First, a lack of velocity due to improper mechanics and Second, a flattening of the sinker. When a pitcher throws a sinker, it is critical to drive through the ball (in pitcher's speak) to get the proper sink. Wang was scared to fully drive off his foot and then also tentative about driving his body towards home plate and putting all of his weight on his right foot to complete a pitch. This naturally causes a pitch to be higher in the zone - killing the sink action.
Wang needed to compensate and tried throwing extra hard to increase his velocity. Only problem, he continuously blew out his arm and created a weakness in the shoulder capsule. This made the entire shoulder unstable.
Wang will likely be able to start throwing in 5 to 7 months. That puts his time table to start throwing between December and February. He probably needs another 2 months to be ready to pitch in a game and another month of rehab to be formally ready to rejoin the rotation. That puts Wang's earliest estimated return at the beginning of next season and a more reasonable estimate at late May or early June of next season. That is without any issues along the way, which is a unlikely at best.
The Yankees can not count of Wang for next season because of the injury + his performance this season. It is a sad case of a pitching career gone awry caused by a bad step taken running the bases.
Yaros
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