Yanks Respond Positively to Girardi

The Yankees responded to last night's tongue lashing by Joe Girardi by losing in grand fashion today. They mustered 6 hits and left 20 men on base. At some point you have to look at a team and at least consider accepting that this all you've got. It's true that the Yankees are better off at this point in the season than last year when they won the wild card. The difference is last year Damon, Abreu, Cano, Cabrera all had monster first half slumps which you knew if they could break out of the team would play better. That's not the case this year. The Yanks just don't seem to have much life in them. It's almost as though they're bored with hitting. I'm not seeing anything to give me much confidence. And as much as Yankee fans keep saying Tampa Bay will choke, at some point you have to realize that's just something you say to make yourself feel better. I don't think Tampa is going to fade. If the Sox and Yanks don't want to deal with them then they're going to have to beat them. If a team is number one at the end of April you can say they got lucky, but at the end of June that is much less likely (though we can't forget what happened to the Mazzilli lead Baltimore Orioles a few years back). The Rays have good pitching and they've been a good offensive team for a few years now. They're not going away just because we wish it. If we can't beat teams we're supposed to beat (i.e. the Rangers) and can't play well in our division (i.e. we can at best hope for a split at this point) then the Yanks are not going to be playing in October. It is a bit of a rebuilding year with the pitching staff, but at this point that's not an excuse. We're not losing because Hughes and Kennedy aren't hitting their spots (we made up injuries so we could put them on the DL and get them out of the rotation). We're losing because we can't hit with men on base. That's a bad sign.