Wily Garcia giving Yankees cheap thrills

On Feb. 11, the Yankees announced the signing of four pitchers to minor-league contracts with invitations to spring training. The four were Freddy Garcia, Bartolo Colon, Luis Ayala and Warner Madrigal.

Madrigal is pitching for Double-A Trenton. The other three represent two-fifths of the Yankees' rotation and their fourth-most important healthy righthanded reliever.

Not bad for a day of dollar-store shopping for baseball's Park Avenue franchise.

Garcia continued his impressive run yesterday by shutting out the Blue Jays for five innings before allowing a run in the sixth and two in the seventh. He set the tone by pitching a scoreless first inning despite allowing a triple on the first pitch of the game. He exited with a 7-3 lead after 61/3 innings and the Yankees went on to win by that score.

Garcia is 3-4 with a 3.26 ERA. Only CC Sabathia has a better ERA among Yankees starters. Colon is 2-3, 3.77. Ayala, who has moved up in the bullpen pecking order with Rafael Soriano out, has a 1.50 ERA in nine outings.

Throw in Andruw Jones, who was signed on Valentine's Day and had two two-run home runs and three hits Wednesday, and you could say the Yankees got a lot of bang for not a lot of bucks.

Jones got a major-league deal -- a $2-million salary plus incentives -- and a lock on a roster spot. That was not the case for Garcia, who couldn't get a guarantee from any team despite winning 12 games for the White Sox last season. The Yankees signed him for a $1.5-million salary (if he made the team) with $2.1 million in incentives.

"He was a flier," general manager Brian Cashman said. "That's why he was a minor-league, non-roster invite. I know when he was out there his agents were looking for a major-league guaranteed contract. I was unwilling to do that. But if he was willing to come in and compete for a job with whatever else we threw in there, I was willing to do that."

Yes, yes, we know, the stats cabal will tell you wins mean absolutely, positively, completely, totally nothing when it comes to judging starting pitchers. "Wins" is the dirty word of pitching stats. It happened long before Charlie Sheen made the word "winning" a punch line and culminated in Felix Hernandez's AL Cy Young Award last year with a 13-12 record.

But isn't winning kind of important? Garcia's career record is 136-91, a .599 winning percentage.

Perhaps some pitchers know how to win with what they have. In Garcia's case, with the Yankees that means passable stuff, veteran savvy, a deep bullpen behind him and one of the best offenses in baseball.

"Freddy's very clever," manager Joe Girardi said. "I think he understands how to pitch to the scoreboard. I think he understands how to pitch when runners are in scoring position, when there's nobody on. He's got a lot of pitches and weapons he can go to. He reads swings well. Freddy's very, very clever."

Clever enough to realize signing with the Yankees was a good fit at age 34 and coming off his healthiest season in four years. As Garcia put it Wednesday, "I don't want to sign with a last-place team. I had to come to spring training and find a way to win the spot."

That was his first 'W.' So far, he's been "everything we needed and more," Cashman said. "He's allowing us to plug a major hole and answer our prayers. You go from Plan A maybe to Plan Z, but it doesn't matter. You are looking for the end results, for getting the job done."

End results. Getting the job done. Is there another way to phrase that? One word maybe?

It's just win, baby.