1. My colleague, Brian Costello, writes today in this piece about Phil Hughes returning to start tonight after being skipped as part of an overall plan to cap his innings at about 175.

I will not use this as a forum to again explain why I agree with the philosophy of being cautious in building up the innings of young starters. Instead, I will suggest that for this plan to work with less controversy and angst the Yanks really do need A.J. Burnett to become useful again.

Look, the Joba Rules were always going to stir debate. But the reason the anger was intensified last year was due to the injury to Chien-Ming Wang. The Yankees’ plan was to have four experienced starters – Wang, Burnett, CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte – do the heavy lifting and protect Chamberlain that way.

Once Wang was lost, Chamberlain became the fourth starter. Joe Girardi felt he could not afford to temper Joba’s innings early on because of that, reducing the total number of innings Chamberlain could be afforded in the second half.

The Yanks again have four veteran starters, with Javier Vazquez replacing Wang, to put around Hughes. But they only have four real veteran starters if Burnett is an asset and not a head case. Maybe the return of pitching coach Dave Eiland today really will help Burnett.

But if Burnett is not right then the Yanks can hardly justify skipping Hughes to let Burnett pitch more frequently.

2. By the way, Joe Girardi keeps saying, “We need to get the real A.J. Burnett back.” But isn’t this the real A.J. Burnett: A pitcher who can be awesome or awful, but hardly anything in between. The end result is something like a No. 3 starter, but Burnett is never really a No. 3 starter. He is a No. 1 on some days and barely a No. 5 on others.

He still lacks any of the skills necessary to keep one-alarm problems from turning into infernos. In seven of his 16 starts, Burnett has permitted two earned runs or fewer. In six starts, he has given up six runs or more. That leaves just three starts where he was just somewhere in the middle of terrific or dreadful.

3. In his last three starts – all against AL teams – Jamie Moyer is 3-0 with a 1.96 ERA and a .138 batting average against. That followed a start against Boston in which he yielded nine runs in one inning, which had followed a start in which he pitched a complete-game victory over the Padres.

I bring this up because overall Moyer is now 9-6 with a 4.30 ERA – having registered a decision in all 15 of his starts this year. And those results have been on my mind recently because I wonder what happens if Moyer goes ahead and finishes this season something like 16-11 with a 4.50 ERA whether he gets a job again next season. Those numbers should suggest another chance somewhere, in fact those numbers might be desirable to a team looking to round out a rotation.

But Moyer will complete his current two-year contract with the Phillies and turn 48 in November. And I wonder how many teams are going to want to invest in a 48-year-old regardless of what kind of success he might enjoy this year. In interviews I have seen with the lefty, Moyer hardly has sounded like he wants to stop playing any time soon, and with 267 career wins he has some lures that should keep him energized

Will some teams – probably in the NL — be willing to give Moyer an extremely low base (think $1 million) with a bunch of incentives, and will Moyer be willing to go that way? I know it is far off, but watching Moyer continue to succeed at this age has me wondering if he can really pitch until he is 50 with the key part being will teams really employ him until he is 50?