WELL IT'S ALSO SCARY HOW WRONG I WAS

about Igawa. At least for tonight. His breaking pitch had no bite and his fastball no movement. Over the last 4 games the Yankees have averaged 6.25 runs per game, a pace of over 1000 runs for the season, and they lost every single game. That's actually hard to do. At this point, I have to say its getting very difficult to feel assured that they can even compete for a playoff spot. Wang will probably be fine and Pettite's been quietly wonderful. But Pavano won't be back for weeks and won't be back for long when he does return. Igawa's second awful outing in four tries leaves little room for hope in that quarter, and there is no reason to think Mussina will be more than adequate when he comes back. And I don't see why in the world Clemens would want to walk into this mess. Yes, he'd get run support and win his games, but he wants to play in the series and that looks unlikely. This is like a team from the height of the Mattingly era; they score runs by the bushel, but they can't score enough to keep up with the Doyle Alexanders of this world. Given what is happening to this bullpen, the Yankees not only need a viable rotation going forward they need a good one. And I only see that happening if Wang comes back strong, Mussina comes back strong, Pettite continues on, Hughes proves to be the real thing right now, and Pavano comes back soon and gives the good starts necessary to make the Yankees look like they've righted things enough for Clemens to come on board. If the rotation was Pettite, Clemens, Wang, Hughes and Mussina, with Igawa as the long reliever (and Pavano back, I assume, on the DL), then we might have something.