Yankees hoping Nova will improve quickly

The Yankees have had such good luck with Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon that it was reasonable to think Kevin Millwood might have been next for the $200 million team's rotation of retreads if Ivan Nova spit the bit Tuesday night.

Nova, who came in with a 7.63 ERA, wasn't just pitching against the White Sox. The 24-year-old was also facing a potentially tougher foe: Yankee impatience.

Nova kept Millwood down on the farm for another day with 6 1/3 innings of five-hit, one-run ball in the Yankees' 3-2 loss.

That's good for him. And good for the Yankees, who should spend a few months -- not a few spaced-out starts -- finding out if Nova can really be counted on at this level.

"We need to get this guy going," manager Joe Girardi said. "He's important to us. He understands how important he is to this club and that we need him to pitch well and we know he's capable of doing it."

Do they? They think they do. But the notion of Millwood replacing Nova next time out floated around Yankee Stadium like a windblown hot dog wrapper before the game. As did the question of whether Nova would carry that concern out to the mound with him.

"I believe that can creep into a guy's mind, definitely," Girardi said. "I think when you're young, you don't necessarily have that track record where they feel that a manager will say, 'We know he's going to come out of it. Just give him a couple more starts and he's going to be fine.'

"I hope he's able to shut it out. I mean, it's not how I'm thinking, but I've been a young player, and I know that feeling and sometimes it's tough. But you have to fight that, and you have to be able to put that aside when you go out."

The mental part is one reason why it's tricky to develop good young starting pitchers. The Yankees should know since they had a 14-year gap from Andy Pettitte (1996) to Phil Hughes (2010).

And now Pettitte is taking his kids to Little League games and Hughes is spending so much time in an MRI tube that Girardi joked about not wanting the radiation to turn him into Spiderman.

It was a good line from Girardi, who is no Chris Rock on the podium. Girardi said he was "hoping and praying that everything is OK" with Hughes, an 18-game winner last season and the Yankees' best bet to develop into a solid No. 2 behind CC Sabathia -- when his fastball was a muscle-bound 94 miles per hour and not a gets-sand-kicked-in-its-face 88.

Nova, who hadn't started since April 15, throws 94, with natural movement talent evaluators dream about and a curve that makes hitters flinch. (His third pitch, a change-up, is still under construction.)

Nova did his part Tuesday night in the longest outing of his short career. He gave the bullpen a 2-1 lead that Rafael Soriano flushed down the drain on Paul Konerko's two-run home run in the eighth inning.

The Yankees were supposed to have a shaky rotation and a stud bullpen. Twenty games into 2011, it has been the opposite, with Mariano Rivera blowing his last two save chances and Soriano looking like the second coming of Kyle Farnsworth: bad and unlikable.

Over the long haul, those two realities should switch: The bullpen will be fine and the rotation will show its flaws. Hence the stashing of Millwood in the minors.

But Millwood is no long-term answer. If the Yankees are lucky, Nova will grow up fast. Tuesday night was a good baby step.