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I have been thinking about Joba and what is in store for him and I think I have a guess at what the Yankees are up to. 

Al Leiter speculated on the pregame tonight that the innings number was 150 or so and I think he is right.  Now that includes postseason and I would bet that means the Yankees are looking for Joba to throw around 140 innings in the regular season.  I would guess that around 15 of those are reserved for the bullpen, so that leaves Joba with about 23 innings left as a starter.  

Now look at the schedule.  Joba will take the ball again on July 29th.  But, the Yankees have an off day on August 3rd, meaning they can skip his turn totally the next time around.  They could then start him August 8th and then again August 13th and 18th.   They then would not need a 5th starter until August 29th. 

So here's my guess.  The Yankees let Joba pitch those next four starts and at the same time start building up Hughes to go back into the rotation.  That's why Aceves stayed in the pen because he is going to get the 8th inning in the gap created when Hughes is stretching out and Joba is still in the rotation.  Once Joba is back in the pen, he hopefully picks up where he left off and Hughes goes back into the rotation with the confidence he earned from mowing down hitters as a reliever.   

Fingers crossed....