TAMPA, Fla. -- It was only for one inning, about 20 pitches to a pair of minor leaguers, Cito Culver and Nick Noonan, but the implications were obvious: the continuing good health of Michael Pineda is essential to the Yankees' chances for success this season.

And so while Pineda might have been quite surprised -- and he was -- when pitching coach Larry Rothschild told him he was done after a brief appearance on the Steinbrenner Field mound Sunday morning, it was obvious that even three years removed from serious shoulder surgery, the Yankees continue to treat Pineda as if his right arm were made of porcelain.

And with good reason. For one thing, labrum tears are among the worst injuries a pitcher can suffer. For another, the Yankees already have enough starting pitchers of precarious health to risk re-injuring Pineda in his first real throwing session of the spring.

Masahiro Tanaka, the presumed ace of the staff, has a partially torn ulnar collateral ligament that they opted to rehabilitate non-surgically last year, but no one really knows if it will hold up to the rigors of pitching every five days. CC Sabathia will be pitching on an arthritic and degenerative right knee and is a few pounds heavier than last year. Ivan Nova is recovering from Tommy John surgery and won't be ready until May at the earliest.

Chris Capuano, re-signed as insurance this offseason, is a known quantity, and Nathan Eovaldi, acquired in a trade, is very much an unknown quantity.

That leaves Pineda as the one Yankees starter who is both reliable and reasonably healthy, and as such he must be handled with the utmost care.

And that's why when Pineda tells you his main goal this year is to "stay healthy," you nod your head and think, "good goal."

Because aside from his rookie season with Seattle, when he went 9-10 with a 3.74 ERA and 173 strikeouts in 171 innings, Pineda has thrown only 76 additional innings in the big leagues, all of them last year. He lost time, of course, to the pine tar suspension, and then to a strained shoulder muscle that sidelined him until Aug. 13. But in his brief appearances last year, he was arguably the most dominant starter the Yankees had; in April, he posted a 1.83 ERA and struck out 15 while walking only 3.

The Yankees need that kind of start out of Pineda again this season. Then they need him to duplicate that five more times if they have any real hopes of being in contention this season.

That's why when Rothschild told Pineda, "You're done," after just 20 pitches off a spring training mound, Pineda's incredulity lasted just a few seconds.

Then he started to smile and jogged off the field. He knows that there's no sense in risking throwing 200 innings in the regular season to throw one more in March.

Notes: Andrew Miller threw a live BP session on the back field at the same time Pineda was throwing on the main field. Not even I can be in two places at once so I'll have to rely on Miller and other witnesses to find out how that went. . . . Yesterday's rain created a backlog in work for today; I anticipate a long workout this afternoon. . . . The Daily Alex: Rodriguez, that is, told me he will work with his newly broken-in first baseman's glove today. As I suspected, he chose a smaller model because it feels more like the glove he uses at third base, rather than the jai alai basket most first basemen use, Mark Teixeira included. I asked A-Rod how he felt about playing first. His answer: "Once you've played shortstop, you can play anywhere on a baseball field."