Roster moves

Just because Roger Clemens gets to skip road trips doesn't mean the Yankees can carry more than 25 players on the active roster.

In calling up Clemens from AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the Yankees sent down reliever Chris "Great" Britton. To make room for Clemens on the 40-man roster, they moved pitcher Phil Hughes from the 15-day DL to the 60-day DL (source).

"That was a tough decision," manager Joe Torre said. "We just felt Sean Henn seems to be improving. He's probably closer to the long man that we want."

I can understand Torre wanting a long man, but Great Britton has been effective this year in an extremely small sample size. He deserves a shot to prove himself as a viable option out of the bullpen. He is certainly better than Kyle Farnsworth or Luis Vizcaino, and his numbers in AAA prove it (23 innings, 20 H, 2 ER, 9 BB, 26 K, 0.78 ERA), but I digress.

It's really a shame about Hughes. With Chien-Ming Wang, Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina, Clemens, and Tyler Clippard, the Yankees have the best rotation they've had in years. However, I would have loved to have seen what Hughes could really do this year. His hamstring injury was very sad and painful to watch. Hopefully it doesn't set back his development.