MJ’s right. The inconsistency that’s troubling the team lies in the performance of the rotation, coupled with a short bullpen over a stretch of 21 games in 20 days. Hopefully, Wang, Unit, and Lidle can give us a few “quality starts” while Moose rests his groin. The addition of Dotel can perhaps save Villone from having to pitch until the cows come home every friggin’ game. But, as always, good pitching wins. We will only go as far as 4 good starters and a deep bullpen can take us.

~~~The Yankees can win 2 out of 3 against anyone in baseball.~~~

As long as it’s not the Chisox, O’s or M’s in the last couple of weeks, right? [wink]

It’s not like the Yankees weren’t in 1st place while in this terrible stretch. They couldn’t have been too bad a team before or after this stretch.

Excluding any team that gets white hot pitching during a playoff series, what team do you think will outplay the Yankees? I would think maybe the White Sox (if they make the playoffs) but their pitching doesn’t seem too keen right now.

Are there any teams without warts? Any teams that will make the playoffs but play very well against good pitching teams?

Is there any reason why you picked the 10th – 12th pitching teams to look at a record rather than including the 13th and 14th teams?

The Angels? On the road? At the end of a road-trip? With Wright and a rookie starting two of the games?

2 of 3 under those conditions?
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Yes, under those conditions. I think our offense can hit any pitcher in baseball, and certainly Lackey (who has not been good in August). So if we beat Lackey tonight, say maybe 7-5, then we can split against the Santana/Saunders combo.

Look, we swept 5 games in Boston. I don’t care who we’re playing and who is pitching for us. The Yankees can win 2 out of 3 against anyone in baseball.

And, as my pal Bailey points out, our two losses against Seattle didn’t exactly discourage me. We lost a lead in the first game and simply fell to a pitcher that had his best stuff of the entire season last night. In between, we absolutely bombed a young power arm that we’d only faced one other time, 11 months ago.

One other thing, though it’s not about this game.

It’s embarrassing that the Angels own us even this year, since games like last night show how awful they are this year.

Beckett is coming off a game where he walked NINE batters and had no control, and he only needed 71 pitches to throw six innings. He would have stayed in the game, too, if he didn’t get hurt. After someone comes off a game where he couldn’t get the ball over the plate, don’t you think maybe you should take a few pitches and not hack at everything?

My God, Yankee fans are such worriers. We go from the summit of sweeping the Red Sox and reestablishing our elite status to losing two of three to the Mariners and questioning our ability.

Nitpicking wins and losses is somewhat pointless, unless you never beat the good teams (like the Tigers). The Yankees beat up on the Tigers and Red Sox. They swept the White Sox and then played three hard-fought games in their homer-paradise ballpark. The Yankees have played well or beaten the good teams. To start panicking because we lost two of three to the Mariners is just silly. We should have won the first game, started by a rookie, but an exhausted Villone couldn’t hold the lead, and then an even more exhausted Villone was stretched beyond what any human would have stretched him and gave up the game winner. And last night was just Washburn having the best stuff he’s ever had — his best stuff and a strikezone ten feet on each side of the plate.

In between those two losses we beat Felix Hernandez, who’s the best pitcher of the three starters.

Randy Johnson pitched a pretty decent game. The mistake he made was to throw Richie Sexson a slider. Sexson has a long swing and can’t get around on a good fastball. If Unit takes back that one bad pitch, we probably win that game.

~~~If they go 2-1 in Anaheim (altogether possible)~~~

The Angels? On the road? At the end of a road-trip? With Wright and a rookie starting two of the games?

2 of 3 under those conditions?

While I don’t dispute the argument that outside of the sweep at Fenway, the Yankees haven’t played well since sweeping the Blue Jays at the start of August, I don’t think losing 2 of 3 to the Orioles and Mariners means that we can’t hit good pitching. Neither team has particularly good pitching, even if Adam Loewen, Erik Bedard, Jarrod Washburn, etc. handcuffed us.

I think the larger problem is that our own pitching hasn’t been very good this month. Wang had two bad starts in a row, Mussina hasn’t been as good this month as he had been from April-July, RJ is a total mixed bag, Wright has gotten bombed twice in three (or is it four?) starts, and Lidle pitched like crap while under the weather in the series opener vs. Anaheim a couple of weeks ago.

If the Yanks scuffle in the playoffs, I don’t think the offense is what we should be worrying about. I’m far more concerned about our rotation.

And all that being said, the Yanks are 10-8 in this hellacious streak of 21 games in 20 days. If they go 2-1 in Anaheim (altogether possible), they will have come out of this marathon at 12-9, which would also include a 9-4 record on the road. There’s something positive in that, no?

But doesn’t good pitching always beat good hitting. I don’t think the Yankees are unique in that they struggle against good pitching. The problem is that our pitching has not been as good as it was in the year’s when we won championships (for the most part). If we are to win the series this year, our pitching is going to have to come through in the playoffs. If Mussina can get back to his early season form and Wang and Unit can keep going as they have recently, we will do well. Otherwise it is likely to be another disappointing postseason.

This is a lot of picking and choosing. I’m sure you could do this with almost every playoff contender. If you took three mediocre to okay teams that the Tigers have destroyed I’m sure it would show that their winning % with those three teams removed are gonna be a lot different. Probably pretty close to the Yankees .556.