HAVING JUST GOTTEN THE WORD THAT HUGHES IS OUT FOR TWO MORE MONTHS,

I now read that Giambi has been oput on the DL with torn tissue in his foot. he's expected to be out three weeks. This I have to say is a crushing blow to any residual hopes they might have had. a resurgence of the offense depended on Giambi having the sort of mid-season comback he had last year. Now the Yankees have no effective DL. Because they were willing to forego offense from their starting first baseman, their back-up catcher, their reserve infielder, and to forego power from each of their starting and reserve outfielders, they are at this point really screwed for offense. They don't have the speed on this aging team to rely exclusively on small ball, and now they don't have the mid-order thunder to expect to win games going long. If there was still a season to be salvaged, it can only be salvaged at this point by a trade or the sudden and explosive maturation of Andy Phillips.

IF DICE-K WERE A YANKEE,

the pundits would, not unreasonably, be questioning whether he was the latest in a line of recent disappointments in pitcher signings. His ERA is about double Andy Pettite's, so we can imagine that his record would be at best reversed, 3-6 versus 6-3. He certainly has not pitched as well as Johnson did the last couple of years and everyone thought he was a failure in pinstripes. He's been better than Jared Wright was last year, but actually not all that much, whatever his potential seems to be. My point is that while Dice-K may turn out a good, even great pitcher, he has been neither so far and the pundits have been, to say the least, reluctant to say so. He is regularly still advertised as part of the Sox three-ace starting rotation. Whne you have three number ones like that, they always say. Well noone else has three number ones like that because noone else is regarded as a number one on the basis of a 4.83 season and career ERA. You don't become a number one by garnering run support, you have to shut people down start after start. Unless you are Dice-K. Then all the "experts" who slated you for Cooperstown on the basis of your first spring training start--see Heyman, Verducci, Donovan--have to protect their reps as prognosticators by insisting, against the evidence, that he has been what they said.

For whatever reason, Dice-K tends to have single inning blow-ups, 4 against Cleveland in the 6th last night, 5 in the 4th against Texas the start before. He has avoided that peril on a number of occasions to pitch stellar games, but almost always against weak teams. Indeed he has only pitched a really good game against a good team once so far this season. He's not getting results nearly as impressive as Schilling, who seems to have lost his fastball entirely. BGW can tell me how the great Dice-K is regarded on the streets of Boston, but in media-land he is still a god, despite performances that have been human-all-too-human.

MAN HE'S COLD

Two on one out in the 2nd inning with the Yanks up 5-0. This is just the spot for the prototypical AROD blast. But he grounded out. He's not even producing the meaningless RBI. Something's wrong.

I POSTED A DEFENSE

of the possibility, though not the likelihood, of the Yankees making a recovery this season exactly 23 minutes before they took the plate in the 1st inning of tonight's game. In that inning they scored 5 runs, thanks in part to the fact that Joe actually did something different: he started Phelps against a righty and Phelps rewarded him with a two out, two run single. Can this please be the last of Skanky Manky I'm Sorry I Stanky? None of this qualifies as a sign of the apocalypse. But how about this? Jorge Posada actually stole a base. I find that bare fact more improbable than any prosepctive outcome to the season. Hell, if Jorge can steal, the Royals can make the playoffs.

I MUST GO AGAINST THE GRAIN

of my own pessimism in order to be true to a still more ingrained reflex, my instinct for regarding sports pundits with the contempt they, more than any other form of expert this side of creationism, so richly deserve. What exactly is a sports expert anyway? Clearly, it's not the same thing as a medical expert or a legal expert. There is no agreed body of knowledge one must master, nor is there any agreement on what mastery of such a body might entail. My definition of a sports expert is, an incredibly lucky version of the unemployed guy at the end of whatever bar you happen to be in.

Anyway, this guy at the bar, the one ESPN (which Joyce memorialized in Finnegans Wake as the Everywhere Spilling Puss Network) decided to give a column, has roundly pronounced the Yankees season over, at least as far as the playoffs are concerned, has pronounced them "out" of the postseason hunt. Now make no mistake. I don't think the Yankees will be playing in October. I don't think the Yankees will be above 500 at the end of the year. I take a back seat to noone in viewing Torre as an alchemist of defeat, turning the gold of talent into the lead of failure. But I have to, no one has to, put some qualification on one's ability to read a future so extended. Noone is out of a race, in this case the wild card race, just because they are 8.5 games back near the end of May, and certainly not a team with the residual potential of the Yankees. We could wake up a week from now, Clemens, Pettite, Wang, Mussina, and ultimately Hughes could be giving us 7 quality starts out of 10, while Giambi, Damon, Cano and AROD could all start hitting like they are capable (yeah, I'm having a harder time imagining Abreu doing that). They could turn into one of the hotter teams in the league while Detroit, Cleveland, the suddenly resurgent Twins and the White Sox play and die in that steel cage match they call AL Central. I'm not saying it will happen, but it could. It's not only possible but vaguely plausible. Noone would have thought this would happen, the Yanks at 21-29, when the season started. That's why you play the games. As the Yankees found out to our chagrin; you can't always be winning games just because you are the Yankees. But we should recognize at this point, you can't always be losing games just because you're the Yankees either. You would have to keep playing the way they are playing.

IT HAS GOTTEN SO BAD

that having lowered his ERA from 2.66 to 2.51, Andy Pettite not only lost anyway (to go an amazing 3-4), but felt it necessary to apologize for just not pitching well enough. This on a night when Abreu's BA fell into the 220's, Skanky Manky's to 220, Cano's below 250, Damon's below 260, and the Yankees made 2 errors (DJ, AROD), plus a misjudges play by AROD. If this team were in A Babe Ruth league somewhere, the parents would be calling for slow Joe's head.

CORRECTIONS (MINE) AND EXCUSES (THEIRS)

It turns out dustin McGowan hadn't won a game as a starter since August of 2005, not May 2006 as I mistakenly reported. Apparently the Yankees didn't feel too bad about handing him his biannual victory. skanky Manky reported that he has electric stuff with a 96-97 mile fastball. Of course when your struggling to hit 220 I'm betting everybody's stuff looks electric. Jeter confirmed that he threw hard and never straight and you couldn't be patient with him. Of course Jeter went 2-4 and if the rest of the club did likewise, Mr. McGowan's last win would still be a distant memory. Of course the real question is given that he is the second coming of Walter Johnson, why can't he beat anyone but the Yankees?

ADDENDUM

It turns out this McGowan fellow's name is Dustin. Before last night he hadn't won a game since May 3 of last year. The reason he tamed the mighty Yankees: they were swinging at anything and he wisely threw a lot of balls on strike 2. So it would seem the main effect of the hour long meeting that Po-Joe held before the game was that the Yankee bats abandoned the only positive quality they had retained hitherto, their patience. Whatever Torre used to have as a motivator and a focuser, and it wasn't nothing, has left the building along with Abreu's heart, Giambi's eye, Damon' s legs, AROD's nerve and Cano's hustle.

OK SO THIS IS CLASSIC

Down 3-0 in the bottom of the seventh and Joe yanks Vizcaino who did well and puts in Villone. Fair enough. villone gets the bottom of the order out and then gives up consecutive singles to Rios and Overbay. Shouldn't we think about yanking him while we've still got a game. Joe doesn't and Villone throws a wild pitch, runners on 2nd and 3rd, no DP in order. So joe has him inentionally walk Wells. Here's where it gets good. Glaus comes up. he's hitting 271, except against lefties (like Villone), he's hitting 458! His OBP against lefties is 552! He's got the bases loaded and he's historically shown a better than even chance of getting on base and so driving in a run. So of course Joe finally comes and gets Villone to put in a right hander. Except he doesn't! He doesn't bring in Bruney or Procter or the big F..... he leaves Villone out there and Glaus singles to center. It's 4-0 and Troy's stats against lefties are even gaudier thanks to no-mo Joe. Please all of you fuckwad pundits out there from little Buster Brown Olney to Fat Fuck Kruck. Do not tell me this man any longer knows how to manage a game.

Oh dear, while I was blogging Joe left Villone in to pitch to another right-hander, Frank Thomas, who Villone promptly walked to deliver another run for the Jays. Finally Joe takes him out, bases still loaded folks, to bring in the single biggest clod in the entire bullpen, Mik fucking Meyers, who proceeds to give up, immediately, a 2 run single to some guy I've never heard of. And it's 7-o. If you are watching this debacle George, will you please, please fire Joe, fire Guidry, fire Kevin Long, fire Mattingly fire Cashman, and send half of these veterans down to AA, where they will have to ride buses. Please.

Well, I spoke too soon. With the seven run lead they've left McGowan out there to pitch the 8th. He just got Skanky-Manky the almost Yankee to ground out. Oh Jeez, Damon just whiffed. Did I mention this nobody starter has seven strikeouts? Well Jeter just got his second hit of the game to raise his average to 355. Too bad nobody else on this team bothers to show up. And I would venture to say at this point, at the risk of rank heresy, that as great a player as Jeter is, maybe he's not such a great captain. The best captain the Yankees ever had was Billy Martin in the 1950's when they went something like 7 for the decade in World Championships. I think at this point Billy would have been well beyond getting in their grill and would have moved on to punching their lights out. I think we need some such aggression (short of physical violence) out of Jeter.

Well, they left McGowan in too long. Matsui just broke up the shutout with a homer. Let's see what AROD can do. He can ground out to shortstop, ending the inning and the Yankees' meager chances. Anyone care to wager on this guy's batting average by the end of June? I'm thinking 280.

As we head into the 9th, this game is over and so is this post.

IT'S SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL SO FAST,

you need the in-game blog just to keep up. somebody named Mcgowan has just thrown his 107th pitch to end the Yankees half of the seventh. I doubt we will see him again tonight, so now seems a good time to reflect on what he did. He came into this game with a 7.29 ERA. he will leave it with something closer to a 5.29 ERA. he wne t7 and allowed the Yankees just 3 hits, a single by Jeter, who stole second and was stranded; a double by AROD, who later struck out with a man on; a walk to Melky, who never got past first; and a single by Abreu, who also stole second and died there. three hits, one walk, and of course no runs to a supposedly formidable line-up, by someone who hasn't gotten anyone else out. Every time you think they've hit bottom, they manage to sink a little lower.

IT IS HARD TO KNOW

what George can be waiting for at this point. In early May, one might have reasonably said that the Yankees start was not all that atytpical and looked worse by reason of the Sox unwonted success. That was then. since the Yankees last reached 500, at which point they confidently stated that they had turned things around, they have played 5-11 ball or right about at .300. That's Kansas City Royal and Pittsburgh Pirate territory. Tino visited the clubhouse and judged only "4 or 5 guys" hearts to still be in it: I'm thinking Jeter, Posada, Pettite, Matsui, and Damon. To have a team give up en masse is the greatest indictment possible of the manager, particualrly when the team is as star-studded as this one. To have a team that would give up is the greatest possible indictment of the General Manager, particularly this early in the season. There really seems no rationale left for holding onto these guys. It's time to turn the page.

On the smaller scale, the Yankees have been carrying a 12 man pitching staff all season to give themselves the greatest possible bullpen depth. While I support that idea in theory, some of these guys stink so bad thay are not really giving support at all. I propose bringing Andy Phillips, who is ripping up AAA, back to the big leagues and optioning Vizcaino, who is a BP pitcher right now. The Yankees badly need production from the right side of the plate and they should look to see if Phillips can provide it.

WE TEND TO FORGET

because Farnsworth and Vizcaino are even worse that Scott Proctor still sucks. Today he reminded us forcefully, giving up a double to his first batter, walking the second to load the bases and then proceediing to walk two more to lose the game. The Yankees bats helped, of course, by failing to score in the seventh with 2 men on and less than one out and then scoring only one in the ninth with 2 men on and nobody out. I have no words to express just how bad this team is, surely the worse assemblage of high-talent players in modern baseball history.

I'M SORRY, BUT

I have to give my self props as an analyste du George.

At 12.07 Am on Wednesday the 23rd, I blogged (check the entry) that George would be looking to fire not Torre but Cashboy if current trends continued. Later that same day, to much ruffling of the pundits, George announced that it was indeed boy Brian and not Torre who was "on a big hook" for this season. "He wanted sole authority," George said, "and now he has to deliver." Them's scalping words, just as I predicted.

HOW ARE THE SOX DOING IT,

How are Chowderville's finest kicking the Yankees ass and running away with the division. The pundits chorus with one voice, it's the starting pitching, that great starting pitching that Theo studiously invested in. As usual, the pundits are at least half-wrong.

The starting pitching has been good but certainly not great, particularly as compared with the Yankees' starting pitching, which everyone knows has been injury plagued and awful. No, actually, it's not the pitching at all; it's the run-scoring stupid! Josh Beckett has a 7-0 record with exactly the same ERA as Andy Pettite (3-3). Dice-K has a 7-2 record with an ERA one third of a run higher than Wang (2-4). Tavares ERA has been comparable, until this week, to Mussina's and he has been able, unlike Moose, to maintain a 5oo record. Schilling is 4-2 with an ERA higher than Clippard's and comparable to Rasner's before he went down. Wakefield's ERA has gone up a full 2 runs a game over his last three starts as the weather warms up.

But as Boston's pitching has actually worsened, their run scoring has gotten progressively better. How have they done it? Well they have 3 guys over 300, just like the Yankees and none of them (Lowell, Ortiz, Youk) has anaverage as high as either Jeter or Posada. Noone on their team as as many homers or RBI's as AROD. Hell Manny doesn't have more rbi's than Jeter. They have a line-up as filled with holes as the Yankees. You think Abreu stinks, check out J.D. Drew (227). You think Damon's been disappointing--not compared with Crisp (240's). Has Cano let us down? Well he's hitting better than Lugo who was supposed to be their sparkplug. Adn Pedroia's not exactly setting the world on fire either. Varitek has been better than expected, but he's no better than Giambi, and Manny has been going worse all around than Matsui. The answer is sadly familiar. As bad a situational hitting team as the Yankees are, that's how good the Red Sox are. When you get on base someone will bring you home. Their hits occur next to one another not scattered through the nine innings. And that means they are producing in the clutch. and that in turn menas they are, and it kills me to say it, a team with character, certainly a good deal more character than this version of the Yankees. Remember Knoblach did not hit 300 form the Yankees; Brosius didn't hit 250 and Giardi didn't either. O'Neill was typically not a 300 hitter, nor was Tino, nor Raines, nor Fielder, nor Strawberry nor Posada. The last dynasty was built on timely hitting not overwhelming offense (unlike the Ruth dynasty (27-29), the Dimaggio-Gehrig dynasty (36-39), but like the Dimaggio- Mantle dynasty (49-54) and the second Mantle dynasty (58-62). From 96-2000, the Yankees were a team whose stats belied their greatness and while this Boston team has achieved nothing yet, they are setting the same pattern.

The pundits, I am pleased to announce are wrong again. While Boston's pitching may be better, they are not necessarily pitching better; and while their hitting may be no better, they are in fact hitting better, much better.

STATE OF THE YANKEES,

state of denial. After yesterday's ugly loss to the Halos, Derek Jeter declared, "We don't feel like here we go again. We don't feel like we're back to square one [following the Boston series]." this was the guy who used to say after every menaingful late season and postseason victory "it doesn't mean anything unless we win tomorrow." Well after today's still uglier loss--when Wang gives you 8 full with 3 earned, this line-up absolutely must win--the Yankees are significantly behind square one, in worse shape than they have been at any point this year, 11.5 behind Boston and 7.5 back of the wild card leaders, with many teams between them and the Tigers. They are getting no significant production from Giambi, Cano, Abreu, Cabrera and whoever is playing first, too little from Damon, Matsui and Arod. Only Posada and Jeter are playing to or beyond expectations and Jeter's own expectations for his teamates seem to have been lowered at some point in the process. I don't give them much chance to win tomorrow with Mussina on the mound and forgetting for the moment about the postseason, should they drop 6 games under 500, at what point during the season, if ever, can one expect them to get back to even. I'm thinking late June-early July, which will surely be too late to make any kind of run.

Yesterday I asked how we came to this point, showcasing Cashboy's malfeasance as GM. Today I ask where should we go from this point.

The first thing needed is to end the Brian and slow Joe show, and not merely out of anger vindictiveness or a sense of just desserts. They are managing and GM'ing the team to save their jobs, a task which involves winning now. They can only imagine winning now by playing the veterans, even though it has become increasingly clear that nothing of the sort is going to work. Bring in somebody with the charge to rebuild, really rebuild, accepting all the pain that entails for the present. Then start dealing. Trade Clemens back to the Astros. You'll have to eat a good deal of the contreact and you'll have to get Clemens to agree by telling him he's going to be in the bullpen here, which means he's always on call, never allowed to go home, and will in fact not get to pitch. The Astros have a real chance to get to the series, particularly if they get Clemens. Secure prospects. Trade AROD. He's going to opt oput at the end of this season anyway and the Yankees are never going to give him a raise. They know he's still not the clutch player they want and he's already getting a mint. Of course AROD can veto any deal, but you can make it clear to him that you are bringing up Eric Duncan or whoever else and if he elects to veto, he will be wasting an entire season on the bench, with rumors that the team has carefully nurtured swirling around him and threatening his next big deal. There is value to be secured for AROD. Trade Giambi for prospects. The Angels are interested. YOu'll have to pay most of his contract, but really we want him gone anyway. He too has a no-trade, but if there is a player more liable to soft blackmail, I don't know who it is. See if there is any market for Mussina. If not convert him into a middle relief guy. See if there is a market for Abreu. In any event, we should be playing Melky. He did pretty well as an everyday player last year. Are his struggles this year an indication that he just doesn't have it or are they an effect of part time status? We need to find out. Get rid of Farnsworth, Meyer, and Vizcaino--by any means necessary.

The pundits have started to circle the wagons around Cashman like they have always done for Joe. They say he's in trouble for trying to rebuild. Bullshit! He's in trouble for failing to rebuild and for failing in his rebuilding. He still goes for veterans at every opportunity and when he elects to get rid of them he's too impatient to find the moment of market pressure when they would bring the highest return (see Johnson and Sheffield).

It is time to really rebuild. Right now the Yankees are a collection of largely overpriced, underachieving, indisputably talented losers. The only way to return to dynasty level is to fill the team with young players who are winners, whatever their degree of talent. As recent history show, status quo Joe is no friend of youth. And as the Carl Pavano episode abundantly illustrates, Brian Cashboy, his unswerving apologist, is no judge of character. They should be fired, ASAP. Not because they have not turned things around, but because only their departure will create the conditions for doing so. The continued employment of these two gentlemen, as an index of some continued faith in their effectiveness, is in and of itself a state of denial.

FOR THOSE WHO IMAGINED THE YANKEES HAD TURNED A CORNER

with theBoston series, think again. And the reason why they haven't and won't and can't was plain to see tonight. Here's the telling statistic: Jered Weaver, 5 innings 3 earned; Tyler Clippard 4 innings, 3 earned. The main difference was in the bullpen, or the Yankees utter lack of one. And this isn't a question, or merely a question, of overuse. Di Salvo gave up 3 earned without recording a single out, and he hasn't pitched for a full turn in the rotation, having gone only 3 in his last start. then Vizcaino, who mercifully has pitched very little of late, gave up 4 earned in just a single inning. In other words the bullpen is back to where it was 2 years ago when John Sterling famously said, "Well the Yankees' relievers are simply incapable of getting anyone out."
Why are we here? Well Joe's mismangement is one glaring reason. But the case of Vizcaino points to another, aptly highlighted by the Boss earlier today. This is not only Brian Cashman's team, the one he put together, it is Brian Cashman's bullpen. He was the one who could have dealt Randy Johnson to the Padres for a prospect and Scott Linebrink, a successful set-up man. Instead he went for three prospects and Vizcaino from the D-Backs. Since only one of those prospects was supposed to be any good, one has to wonder why he didn't go for the better reliever. The fact that that one prospect, Russ Ohlendorf, is apparently yet another disaster, means that Cashboy effectively gave Johnson away and now has no bullpen to show for it. The best one can hope for out of Clemens, for which Cashboy so overpaid, is a line like this, 6 innings, 2 earned or 5 innings 1 earned, but with the likes of Vizcaino and Farnsworth, Meyers and DiSalvo, the Yankees will be losing those games 7-5 anyway. The recent failure of the bats has made people forget about how truly bad this bullpen is, how mediocre their defense, how injury prone their players (Giambi, Damon) and how shaky much of the starting pitching (Mussina and Clemens in particular) remains. Yes the Yankees will hit in the nend, but that doesn't mean they'll win. Not by a long shot.

In a rather grim paradox, it now looks like Cashboy was not stymied by the old George's proclivity for high priced obsolecent talent; he was protected by it. Everyone claimed Brian knew what he was doing bu didn't have the authority to effect the right moves. Now that George has gotten out of his way, so to speak, Cashboy is not liberated but exposed, exposed as a fraud, whose baseball judgement ranks right up there with Danny Ozark. Let me list some of the names and contracts for which the Cashboy has been primarily responsible Pavano (DL), Sanchez (DL), Ohlendorf (no good), Jared Wright (awful), Britton (no good), Vizcaino (sub-awful), Skanky Manky the almost Yankee (enough said), Nieves (1 for the last five years, and thrown out trying to stretch it), Villone (is he still here?), Farnsworth (a working man's Pavano), Clemens (is he still alive?), extending Mussina's contract when God himself couldn't extend his career. By contrast, George was responsible for Johnson (a big disappointment but not a disaster), Giambi (a mixed bag), Matsui (a big plus), AROD (an AROD), and Kevin Brown (the worst thing until Pavano). I think George's record was pretty bad, but Cashman's is even worse despite his sharing Michael's philosophy of player development. He has managed to do what George hadn't done since the late 80's: produce a Yankees team where sufficient improvement in the near term seems almost impossible. I think that corner won't get turned next week, next month or even next year. The ext really good Yankees team migh not come until 2010, by which time we can only hope Cashman is the general manager of a bowling alley in Akron.

YANKEE/NOT A YANKEE

I said when they brought him back that I couldn't define a ture Yankee but I knew one when we saw it and Andy Pettite was the real deal. In the immediate advent of this series, I pointed out that I always like our chances with Andy on the mound. Tonight, with little bite on his breaking pitch, little control over his cutter and a 2 seam fastball that only occasionally hit the 90 MPH barrier and never broke it, Andy tamed the big bad Red Sox bats, sending Poopie home without a hit, Lugo and Varitek likewise, and surrendering only one run in 7 full to lower his ERA for the season to an amazing 2.66. To give you some context that is the exact same ERA as Josh Beckett, who has been the gold standard this year; it's about half a run better than Santana, a run and a half better than Shilling and 2 runs better than Dice-K. Torre awoke from his slumber to make the acute point that Pettite basically does it on courage. Great games for Damon, Jeter (3 hits apiece), Matsui (2 hits, 1 homer) and Cano (2 hits). If they could just get Cano going like last year they could move him up to 6th and get some continuity through the top of the line-up. Abreu and Giambi continue to founder and for the momet there seems no solution to the problems they pose.

Speaking of courage, tonight's not a Yankee is the most gutless sissy ever to wear the pinstripes. Carl Pavano has whined about needing elbow reconstruction surgery and even though 2 doctors say rehab might do the trick, Brian Cashboy, who is Pavano's rival in testosterone deficiency, has acceded to his sniveling demands to collect the rest of his 40 mil much as he has collected almost all of it to date, on the DL. Pavano's agent. doubtless a representive specimen of that sleazy tribe, claims that this is about allowing the 31 year old sissy to resume his career, albeit after his contract with the Yankees has expired. Why the Yankees care about the future of cahone-less Carl after he is done with them is beyond me. But the truth is that he will not have any future career anyway. Who is going to pay even the minimum for someone 33 years old, coming off major surgery for just one of the many ailments he's complained of over the past few years (including a boo-boo on his bum), someone who hasn't pitched more than a few games at any time since he was 28. No Pavano's career will now be defined, like Doyle Alexander or Steve Sax, by his failure as a Yankee. He's now a very affluent punch-line.

For his part, Cashboy claimed that Pavano had never once laid down on the team, a sentiment derisively disbelieved not only by the fans but by Pavano's teammates whose contempt for him has been made clear. Cashboy knows that Pavano's laziness, indifference and gutlessness all point to his, Cashboy's own shortcomings as a judge of talent, fitness and character, i.e. his increasingly apparent ineptitude as a GM. If Cashboy is not as big an idiot as Steve Phillips, he's mighty close. Someone should wake George up to the fact that Cashboy is abusing the owner's generousity by throwing money down as many pitching rat holes as he can find (Johnson, Mussina, Jared Wright, Kyle Farnsworth, with Pavano being the capper). I can't believe George wouldn't want to fire him were he compos mentis. Cashboy is to Gene Michaels what Pavano is to Pettite, the faux Yankee to the true.

I HONESTLY BELIEVE

that the pitch Mussina threw Manny in the first inning last night was the biggest meatball I have ever seen thrown in anger at the major league level--86 mph, right down the middle, no movement whatsoever, belly button high. Manny has been struggling this season, but even at his worst he's going to lose a pitch too fat for batting practice.

Well, the Yanks failed to hit Tavares yet again, just like BGW predicted, and afterr giving him props for his analysis, I began to wonder why. Well even with his 5.50 ERA coming in Taveras has been one of those rh's, like Pettite and MO, who are especially hard on left-handed hitters. They were batting just 212 aginst him. And as we all know the Yankees can't hit LH pitching this year.

But with that answer came another question. why don't the Yanks, and other teams for that matter treat pitchers like Taveras as left-handers and set up their line-ups appropriately. Why not play Phelps instead of Man-Cow, why not sit Abreu and let Cabrera go righty? Why not let Posada go righty? Baseball people always use the platoon percentages to show how smart they are. why don't they think it through to the next level? doesn't it matter more that Tavares' ball moves like a lefties than that he actually is a lefty?

YANKEE FANS, THIS ONE INCLUDED, FELT NOTHING

but disgust for Randy Johnson's underwheliming geriatric performance in pinstripes. But you know he was never this bad, never nearly this bad. Mussina gave up 7 runs, all earned in 6.1 innings, an all too typical outing that leaves his ERA at 6.56 for the season. The thing is he is not giving the Yankees any real chance of winning when he takes the hill. It is a measure of Torre's knee-jerk managerial idiocy that the only logical step, the one I have been urging, will be taken much too late, say in August, if at all. Steinbrenner has been blasted, including here, for his preference for players in his own age group, but Torre's the one who simply refuses to recognize that the walkers and the artificial hips might be a sign they can't do the job anymore. What is really striking though is that the pundits, who have been recently opining that the Yankees "look old" (they might have said "look their age"), never include Mussina among feeble and infirm even though his play suggests he's the one most ready for the home. At least the fans are waking up; they booed him off the mound tonight. How long, do you think, before we get scolded by the pund-ass-cracy, for our ingratitude and our spleen, a la AROD?

While the"Moose" clearly needs to be "put down," he didn't lose this game alone. That bubgaboo, inept situational hitting reared its head once again. The Yankees had the bases loaded in the fifth and the eighth and got just 2 runs, both on fielder's choice outs that killed the rally. In the ninth, they got runners on 1st and 2nd with noone out and came away with nothing. I think Giambi's refusal/inability to bunt or hit the other way to force other teams out of that shift is a metaphor for the Yankees' incapacity to exploit offensive opportunities.

Finally, in the stopped clock is right twice a day department, slow Joe noted that once your in this kind of hole, it's all about winning series and the pressure is on to do that tommorow. Indeed. The yankees lost 2 of 3 to a weak Seattle team, followed by losing 2 of 3 to an offensively challenged White Sox team, followed by losing 2 of 3 to their crosstown rivals. It's as if their urgency is so limited they can only bestir themselves to salvage one game out of each encounter, which somehow allows the to think they'll be alwright, even as the cascade of lost series makes their position, if not their attitude, ever more desparate. Well, as far as I can tell, this is the wall they should be feeling at their backs. If they lose tomorrow night and wind up the series falling yet another game behind, to 11.5, I think the division is practically and psychically out of reach and the wild card perilously close to being so.

But on the bright side, if they lose tomorrow night, I think there is a very good chance George will fire....no, not Torre, but, that's right, Cashboy. I think George is begiining to feel nostalgic for the old days of scalping his employees for their failures but doesn't wish to disturb his investment in Roger Clemens by removing the man Rocket wants to pitch for. So I think Cashboy just may get the axe. There is a double irony here: A) Cashboy would be fired as a surrogate for the man whose job he has been ardently protecting recently--not least by saying don't blame him, blame me; B) Cashboy is probably right; he should be the first to lose his position. There was a time when Torre did some extraordinary things for this franchise, admittedly all too long ago. There was never a time Cashboy did anything all that great and the things he has done wrong are as egregious as they are numerous.

ALMOST THE LAST THING i SAID

on the previous post was that I wish someone other than Mussina was going tonight. Well so far he's pitched one full, given up 3 runs on 5 hits and thrown 30 pitches. He won't last 4 I'm betting and he's probably dug them a hole they won't get out of. His ERA is now 6.56. I'll say it again. He's looked lousy since Tampa. He's got very little left. He shouldn't be starting anymore. Oh and Brian Cashboy is wholly responsible for the ridiculous contract they gave him. We'd have been better off keeping Johnson than this hasbeen.

The Yankees plan to pitch Clippard instead of diSalvo from here on out (until Hughes returns). better to pitch them both and leave Moose out to pasture.

AMAZING THING 2

If Jeter scores a hit tonight, he will have hit safely in 76 out of the last 79 games he has played in with at least one official at bat. That has been accomplished only once in the history of the game: DiMaggio in the streak year of 1941. If Jeter hits in both games of the remaining series to go 77-80, he will ha ve done something noone has done. Pair that with the 13-20 with 2 out RISP and it really is hard to see why anyone calls this guy overrated. Chowderheads who claim he is overrated, and they're numbers are legion, have all the class and credibility of Yankee fans (and their numbers are miniscule) who have in past years claimed Manny can't hit.

BIG THING, LITTLE THING, AMAZING THING

The big thing from last night's game was not the win, it was the energence of Wang as a 4 pitch pitcher (Sinker, Slider, change-up, curve). the slider and the change-up look just like his money pitch, the sinker, except for the speed of the latter and the angle of break on the former. The enhanced repetorie allows him to challenge hitters and get more strikouts, limiting the bad luck to which contact pitchers are liable. Meanwhile, my April prediction that Wakefield would cool down as the weather heats up looks to be coming true. His ERA over his last 2 games is about 8.50. Before that it was about 1.70.

The little thing, which only seems little in the context of a win, occured in or around the seventh inning last night. The Yankees were winning but could clearly have used another run for comfort. The bases are loaded, the slumping Abreu is at the plate, and the count is 3-1. The important thing here is that Romero had thrown 19 balls in his last 23 pitches. He now has to throw 2 strikes in a row to a guy with a pretty good eye to avoid walking in a run. He has not strung 2 strikes togetheg his entire outing. So of course Abreu swings at the next pitch and grounds out to end the inning. I don't blame him. He's a batter after all. I blame slow joe, who obviously should have had the take sign on in that situation. but there's just nobody driving the truck over there during the games.

The amazing thing: with 2 outs and runners in scoring position, Derek Jeter is 13-20 this season. That's right, he is hitting 650 with 2 outs and RISP. And people wonder why Yankee fans think AROD is a choker by comparison.

They have Tavares going tonight. Kind of a must win. I wish we had somebody other than Mussina. If we get this one, alot of the pressure shifts to the Fat Man tomorrow night, and I always like our chances with Andy on the mound.

RESPONDING TO BGW

Who would I like to see replace slow Joe if he goes down, hopefully soon. Well, let me say first of all that I want to see Pena retained as a coach, not promoted to manager. I think Jorge Posada has been a much better player in every phase of the game since Pena's been on board and you can't overestimate the value of a dependable receiver. Second, I take your point BGW about the value of Larry Bowa's fire on team that seems all but extinguished of late. But I too remember well his tenure in Philadelphia (the other team I follow on a day by day basis) and my feeling was that he was nearly as bad a field tactician as slow Joe, not as mind-numbingly orthodox, but mind-bendingly tone-deaf. But retaining him as third base coach would, I agree, be a good idea. At the risk of being utterly conventional, and you have to risk that sometimes, I would like to see slow Joe replaced by Mo-Joe, i.e. Joe Girardi. Girardi manages with fire, he's great at developing young players and I'd like to see the Yankees get younger in a hurry, and he's willing to stand-up top anyone in the organization, which I think would prove particularly necessary if George continues to fade and Brian Cashboy continues to work here. Plus, I like the idea of having a manger good enough to keep around for 10 years (which is would have meant firing Joe in 2004, perfect!) and Giardi is young enough to envision that happening.

Look back at this blog and you will see I have been lusting to see Clippard in the majors along with Hughes. He sure looked good last night. I'm thinking about next year and a rotation that includes four youngsters (Hughes, Wang, Clippard, Rasner) along with Andy Pettite. I don't know if they'd win the division or anything, but I think it would be fun. Sort of like watching Verlander, Bonderman, Robertson and Maroth develop over in Detroit. I still say send Mussina to the bullpen now!

THIS BLOG HAS MADE FUN OF GEORGE,

for his pretension to expertise on baseball talent, his addiction to big name superstars in the twilight of their careers, and his apparent descent into senility. But for all that I have always felt he is the single best owner in baseball, because he is the one who has always shown the fans of his team respect and affection in his willingness to spend whatever it takes to field a winning or championship team. Now George you must show those same feelings for Yankeedom in another way. You owe us fans, all who have contrinued to pay attention to this trainwreck of a team with something other than morbid, rubberneck fascination, new personnel in control of things in the Bronx--a new manger (bye Joe), a coaching staff (bye Gator, bye Donnie B., but I'd keep Pena), and most of all a new GM (bye Brian). On the last point, isn't it fair to say that Cashman never in his career built a championship team for the Yankees. Don't we owe the last dynasty to Gene Michael and its sad aftermath to boy-Brian. I think I'm right on that, which is just one more reason that he, like Joe, should have been gone sometime ago. But now George, now you owe us nothing less than their empty heads on a platter. You can't remain the best owner in baseball if these mediocrites remain in place.

TWO DOWN,

Four to go. Or maybe it's two down one to go. If the Yankees lay a big enough egg tomorrow and get swept by the Mets on national TV, maybe Steinbrenner won't wait for the Red sox series.

The injury to Rasner can't help but give you the sense the Yanks are snakebit, and at least they showed a little fight today, but they still managed to leave 26 men on base, 26! That's unconsionable. And Joe has to take a lot of the blame for this one as well. There's absolutely no reason for Meyers to be on the roster, but if there were, it would be as a single out left-hand specialist and occasional mop-up man. You don't try to get four innings out of him at the beginning of the game unless you've really just given up on the possibility of winning. Slow Joe is forever complaining that MO gets no work, on account of the fact that the Yawnkees have needed a save since April, so why not have him pitch 2 today, followed by 2 from Bruney, 2 from Villone etc. Meyers apparently campaigned for the start tomorrow night, which is no reason to allow him to pitch at all, let alone fulfill his wish. I mean I'd like to start for the Yankees as well, but like Meyers I don't have the ability. Meyers' request should have been given the same consideration as mine would have been, zero.

In any event, it was nice to see AROD find his comfort zone; there's just nobody like him when you are down 5 in the 8th and you need a meaningless solo blast. And Cano continues his night- mare season with a 3 error game (actually, if not technically 4!). Shades of the late Chuck Knoblach! Meanwhile Giambi and Abreu continue to vie for most useless and overpaid person on the team--which is also to say the majors.

Tyler Clippard tomorrow night. Something of interest anyway.

ONE DOWN,

Five to go.

Poor Andy Pettitte. Do you know how hard it is to fashion a 2.83 ERA over eight starts in the DH league and have only a 2-3 record to show for it. And this was supposed to be the team that could guarantee run support.

Oh and Giambi, working on a 1-25, stated after the game that "this team is capable of reeling off 15 straight wins." And of course he's right. Just not in the major leagues, either one of them.


Good bye Joe
You gotta go
Me oh my oh!
You can't think
Your team stinks
Even George says so.

THEY KEEP DRAGGING ME BACK

Apparently the Yankees no longer care enough to be a good team, but they have been good for so long they don't know how to be a bad team. And as a result they've become that worst of all baseball fates, a joke.

Tino Martinez noted on NY radio yesterday that the only guys on this team that look like they care about winning are Jeter and Jorge. He didn't include Mo or Mr. April. I think he's dead right. Last night I watched the Boston highlights and saw a physically challenged borderline major leaguer by the name of Eric Hinske do a full scale lay out to save a flagging Fat Man from giving up a 2 run double and the Sox from losing the game. Hinske then homered to win the game, giving Boston a sweep of the other good team in the AL, Detroit. The play summarized everything about this season. The Sox, like the Mets, are playing with so much energy, so much desire and the concentration these things bring, while the Yankees are playing without any of these qualities. Oh Melky would have attempted and perhaps made that catch (Tino should have included him in the small coalition of the winning) but none of the other outfielders would have made it and only Matsui would have tried (probably breaking his wrist in the process). Torre should play the Hinske tape 24 hours a day in the Yankees clubhouse, under a caption that reads: You want to know why we are 9.5 back--because they want it so much more than you do.

Meanwhile fecklessness and futility turn to folly as Kyle Farnsworth complains about the terms of Clemens contract and Giambi takes time out from his busy schedule of leaving men on base to complain that all of baseball has not offered its fans a blanket apology for the bad pharmocological behavior of people like, well, Jason Giambi.

Let's see. To Farnsworth I would say that we Yankee fans are less enthusiastic about the prospect of Clemens not going home on off days than we are about the prospect of you going home and staying there, permanently. I didn't want the Yankees to sign Clemens in the first place, but if there is anything more ridiculous than the inflated-prorated contract they offered him, it's the 38 mill you are getting for blowing leads and failing to answer the bell on account of your back. Yankee fans actually feel more relief when you can't pitch than you provide when you do.

As for Giambi, the only apology that seems really pressing right now is the one you and most of your teammates owe Yankee fans for the way you are playing, or not playing.

When you have the 8th best record in the AL you have earned a measure of obscurity the Yankees appear unable to abide. But when you thrust yourself into the limelight under such circumstances, it can only be at the price of making jerks, fools and simpering twits of yourselves, which the Yankees have now undertaken to do. All I can say at this point is six more games, 3 with the Mets and 3 with the Sox, after which Torre will surely be fired and my work here will finally be done.

AFTER THE YANKEES FINALLY WON A GAME LAST NIGHT,

Slow Joe was heard to say, "Hopefully this will start something because they are certainly capable." He seem to find the Yankees competence to be soem sort of compensation for their performance instead of the aggravating factor that it is.

Well today they were back at it, relying ona competence they see no particular need to demonstrate and they went down yet again, in the ugly manner of yesterday's afternoon game, i.e. without so much as an offensive whimper. Abreu did nothing, Giambi did nothing, Matsui managed to kill two rallies with twin double play balls, Cano did almost nothing, Cabrera did nothing, even Posada did nothing. Di Salvo wasn't very good, but a stellar job by the bullpen, keyed believe it or not, by Ron Villone, kept the Yankees in the game right up to the point that the bats frittered it away altogether.

I don't know what Mattingly does as bench coach; I suspect nothing at all. Since status quo Joe only follows the most conventional wisdonn, the most hidebound orthodoxy, in every decision he makes, I don't see that he needs a whole lot of affirmation from his underlings or that he pays much heed to any dissent from that quarter. That being said, Mattingly needs to be "demoted" to a more useful post, batting instructor, at least for all those left-handed hitters I just listed, who are having terrrible years (and you can include Damon as well). Cano has gone from being Rod Carew to being Larry Bowa; Cabrera has gone from being sufficiently dangerous at the plate to warrant getting his glove and legs on the field, to being a huge offensive liability. Matsui has lost all his pop and abreu all his consistency. It's time to find out if Kevin Long is the bane I suspect him of being.

In any event, that is the last advice I will be dispensing for awhile. This team is barely worth following, hardly worth watching and definitely not worth blogging. The Yankees have elected to waste a huge amount of money on the dim possibility of a Rocket-resuscitation. I propose to waste no more of my time on this team until and unless that possibility becomes a reality somewhere down the road. It is one thing to be losing, which can be analyzed and repaired; it's another thing to be dead, which can only be dissected. Right now this team is just dead and I'm too disgusted with their fetid corpse to dissect them anymore.

ANOTHER DAY,

Another defeat.

The Yankees went down again, for the 4th time in the last 5, and went down listlessly, effortlessly, indifferently. They were not inept, but they were totally flat. They didn't show up to play. They lost to a Triple AAA pitcher named Danks, a man without much of a fastball and an inconsistent curve, who has had precious little success at the MLB level. They lost to a team who fielded not a single player with a BA better than 260 and 2 with a BA under 200, including Konerko. They lost in a familiar way, with AROD striking out in a key situation because having fallen in love with his own April, he now disdains to swing for anything but the bleachers. They lost playing station to station ball, the failure to send Damon in the fifth costing them a key run when Jeter singled. But most of all they lost because Mussina's return to the rotation is no solution for what ails Yankee pitching.

Allow me to elaborate. Mussina is okay so long as he is very efficient with his pitches in the early innings. that happened alot last year in the early going. But teams caught on and by the end of the season, we were back in 2005, when he couldn't get past the 6th to save his life. Game 2 against the Tigers was a classic exhibit. The White Sox know, as most teams now do, that if you make Mussina work a little early, he will be gassed in the middle innings. He will start pitching away from contact, run more counts, get that much more tired, and ultimately lose enough velocity on his fastball that waiting on the breaking stuff and especially the change-up becomes pretty easy to do. And then he gets hit. Of course the problem is exacerbated by the strain under which the Yankees bullpen has been working, and today those two problems came together to cost the Yankees the game. In the fifth Mussina gave up a run on two ropes, putting the Yankees down 2-1. With two outs, the batter hit a towering fly to left that Melky brought back from over the fence to end the inning (Matsui never makes that play). The Yankees tie it in the top of the 6th (they should have gotten more). Mussina resumes the mound and gives up a towering fly to the same place in left by A. J. what's his name, only this one flies five rows back into the stands. 3-2 Sox. Four of the last five baalls have been ripped and it is surely time to bring the Moose out, even though he's only gone 5. But Torre doesn't, maybe because he feels he has abused his relievers enough. Long story short, Mussina hangs a couple of curves, fools noonne with his change, and gives up 2 more runs while only getting one out. So Torre hasn't saved any tread on his bullpen and now he has lost the game as well. My point is that Mussina has become a part of the bullpen problem in a way that neither Di Salvo nor Rasner have been. But when Hughes or Clemens returns, whichever comes first, a bold and astute manager would make Mussina part of the solution, by making him the yankees main man in middle relief. The guy is a really good pitcher for 2-4 innings. But he's not a starter that can take you deep anymore, and with the Yankees' bullpen problems, they can't afford somebody who just falls off the cliff in the 5th or 6th inning (you can actually see it transpiring on a pitch by pitch basis). The move I suggest won't happen (I said a bold and astute manager, not a slow and status quo Joe), and if the move was made, it wouldn't suddenly turn the yankees into winners--something must happen in the team culture for that--but it would, literally, provide a double measure of relief, turning a source of need into a source of replenishment.

It certainly a better idea than say bring back Ron Villone, which is exactly what Cashman did today, in what I can only hope is his last act as Yankees GM.

FAR FROM SLAMMING DAMON,

Brian Cashman today came out and agreed with him on the likelihood of Boston winning the division. If you don't think you can win today, why are you playing people that will not be around to help you win tomorrow, like Abreu, Mankiewicz, Mussina, Damon himself? If you don't think you can win today, why in the world would you pay Clemens 1 mill per start just to spice up the futility? And if you can't win today, spending upwards of 200 mill, why don't you, just out of a sense of shame,

a) shut the fuck up
b) get the fuck out

I don't know about you, but I think it's now official, Brian cashman is a worse incompetent, a more virulent toxin and a bigger loser even tham the man whose job he saved (in yet another act of GM fecklessness).

AFTER THE YANKEES' UNFORGIVEABLE LOSS TO THE MARINERS,

and the Sox improbably fortunate comeback against the O's, Johnny Damon opined that if Boston kept going this way noone was going to cathc them. Huh? First of all, the Yanks are so far behind not because Boston has been that great but because they themselves have been that bad. After all, Detroit and Cleveland have records nearly as good as Boston's and they haven't had the advantage of taking 5 of 6 from the Yankees. Second, and more troubling, it sure sounds like Damon is preparing himself and the fans for failure and explaining it away as another team's overwhelming success. Isn't it a little early to be throwing in the towel in this way.

Actually Damon's position is the just the flip side of the Yanks' more conventional rationalization, i.e. it's still early, there's plenty of time to right the ship, there's no reason for concern. In either case, license is claimed for playing without urgency: either we will succeed automatically in the fullness of time or the Red Sox will render our efforts futile by their own excellence. The important thing is not to care too much, not to sweat things too much, not to struggle too much. Nobody on this squad is going to smack themselves on the batting helmet, hard, when they strike out, as I saw Paul O'Neill do. I wish Paulie would come back just to smack half of them in the head with his bat sans helmet. It's hard not to hate a team that cares less about how they are doing than you do.

TO BE PRECISE,

Cano, 4-41, Abreu 1-22, Giambi, 0-18, AROD 2-17, all current slumps. The yankees 3-4-5 hitters during this period are hitting a rousing .055, that's right .055! Kevin Long, see ya.

THEY'RE BAAAACK!

And so am I. Returning from a forced layoff from the blogosphere, I find that everything has changed about the Yankees, changed, that is, into something far more familiar than what we endured in April.

At the end of last month, incessant injuries combined with an overused and overrated bullpen to create the impression that the Yankees' pitching woes were insoluble, condemning the team to an early exit from the championship stage. Now with the acquisition of Clemens, the news that Hughes hamstring isn't so bad after all, the emergence of Rasner and DiSalvo, the continued brilliance of Pettite, the return to reasonable form of Mussina, the projected return to consistency of Wang, and the liberating relegation of Pavano to the ahs heap of baseball history, one can envision a fairly formidable rotation and a transfusion of young pitching into the bullpen, allowing losers like Vizcaino, Meyers et al. to be designated for retirement. But you will do me the justice of remembering that even at the nadir of the pitching fiasco, I noted that the Yankees were squandering some decent efforts. Now that mini-trend has become an epidemic as the Yankees have reverted to the kind of offensive malaise we saw much of last year, i.e. lousy situational hitting, even worse late inning, clutch hitting, too much station to station baserunning, too much waiting for Homer etc.

Damon, Abreu, Cano, Cabrera have all been pretty bad most of the season, and with the exception of Damon, they have been even worse in the clutch. Giambi has done nothing since the bone spur cropped up, and his production was crucial throughout April. Speaking of April, Mr. April decided to get a jump on October futility by going silent in May--maybe he just figures Dave Winfield has the patent. Jeter and Posada simply cannot drive the offense by themselves, as well as they are hitting, and Torre continues to believe he can afford to play Mankiewicz at first because he has such big names--though not big bats--elsewhere in the order.

Today the Yankees wasted a great outing by Pettite in a manner that recalled last year all too clearly. Down 2-0, they get one back thanks to Jeter, but they go on to waste two rallies, one in the 7th inning and one in the 8th. In the first Torre replaces Phelps with Mankiewicz to get the match-up and a double play immediately ensues. You don't sub for a decent hitter with a crappy hitter just to get the match-up, particularly when the better hitter is warm and the worse is coming up cold. Pinch-hitting is difficult enough for people whoi can actually hit, without leaving it to the likes of that feeb. Then in a classic moment, AROD strikes out on a 3-2 fastball with 2 on in the eighth. This after AROD's error in the third cost the Yankees their first run. In other words, AROD failed to win the game at the plate and managed to lose the game in the field. Yes, it's just like old times.

Only now the Yankees are 8 back of Boston and in danger of being blown out of contention before Clemens even returns to overblown fanfare and compensation.