THE BRONX BUTCHERS

AROD gave us all another reason to hate him last night, popping out in true gacker fashion with two out and the bases loaded. Most disturbing is that while AROD lacerated himself for missing such a fat pitch, I'm not certain he should have been swinging at all. It looked high out of the strike zone to me.

But then again that's not finally the reason they lost. Three more errors (6 already) to go with two wild pitches ensured that even the 6 runs they scored wouldn't be enough. I know it's early and all, but people we've got a problem. The starting rotation, which I think is better than advertised, is filled with guys who pitch to contact: Pettitte, Mussina, Wang, Igawa and Pavano. There isn't a power pitcher in the mix. If the glovework continues this shoddy--and really they're just picking up where they left off last year--the entire staff is likely to be demoralized by June. This team can and will score runs, but so did the Yankees at the height of Donnie Baseball's career, and they never came close to a championship. They didn't have this pitching staff, but neither did they have this collection of weak arms and porous gloves.