AND NOW THEY ARE EXTINGUISHED

I'm not sure the Yankees can afford a lost nine game homestand and still make the playoffs, but that is what they are looking at. I believe AROD not being in the line-up, taken on its own, can actually help the offense. There is a tendency for the other guys to wait for him to produce the fireworks and not to fight through their own at-bats. And since he remains the most gifted choke artist in the history of the game (well, that's something!), the tendency is a losing one. But with Posada out as well, they not only lose one of their few clutch performers, they also get to luxuriate in excuses for the inevitability of their failure--which quotes from new Joe, Andy Petite and others indicate they have already begun to do. With the exception of Wang (and last year's Hughes), this is not a pitching staff that can pull off the 1-0 or 2-1 win very often, if ever, and this Yankee team remains every bit as bas at scratching out runs as they were under slow Joe. Last night they left 18 men on base, which is egregious even by last year's standards, and they are poised perilously close to the bottom of the league in RISP batting average, which is just unforgiveable when you realize Posada and Arod have really been gone all that much yet.

Part of the problem is that only 2 guys on the team, Matsui and Cabrera are at 300, and part of it is that 2 guys in the middle of the line-up, Giambi and Cano, are not even within shouting distance of 200, and this with a full month of the season gone. How much I wonder is remediable by devoting some thought to the problem? I would guess some. Clearly you can tell Giambi that for every game he doesn't hit a grounder through the left side of the shift, he doesn't play a game. That would get his attention, and some compliance with what has to be the most obvious imperative in the whole Yankee offensive picture. And for a hitter of Cano's ability to still be looking like the second coming of Phil Linz begs questions about technique, bad habits etc. If the hitting coach can't fix Cano in the next week, I would think he should be fired, with extreme prejudice.

But the larger RISP problem is probably unsoluble by the head, it goes to the heart and the nerve of the team. And so far they haven't showed any more of those qualities for Giardi than they did for Torre. Nor have they played with any greater sense of urgency than they did last year. And that really is a surprise to me and a disappointment. Frankly, they are playing much as I would have expected them to under Mattingly, which is why I was so opposed to his hire. And at the end of the day--or maybe at the beginning of the day--I do blame Giardi. Because he is not managing this team, or commenting on their performance, in the same mode that he did with the Marlins. HE IS MANAGING THIS TEAM AS IF HE WERE MANAGING THE NEW YORK YANKEES. And that's the problem, because he isn't. These aren't the Yankees at all. Consider--with Jorge on the shelf, only two position players on the team, Jeter and Damon, have rings. Only one starter does (Petite) and only one reliever (MO). When you consider Andy is only on the field once every 5 days and Mo is only on the field when (and if) the game is in hand, there is virtually noone regularly in pinstripes this year who knows a damn thing about winning, and some of these Yankees have had long and distinguished careers (e. g. Giambi, Abreu) without ever winning it all, as if that was somehow normal or acceptable. Giardi needs to wake up and recognize his present yankees are no more winners than his erstwhile Marlins, that they, like those Marlins, need to be taught how to win or, if you like, to refuse to lose. And he'd better wake up soon, because the season is rapidly slipping away. And if it goes as badly as it could, Hank won't keep him around to see another April with its new rays of hope.

Proposal of the day: With AROD out, try Gonzalez at third. He's the best infielder on the team, easily, and while he has modest offensive skills, he fights for every at bat.