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Now the Yankees start to dominate. 34-10 the rest of the way? Oh yeah…..

That dribbler between first and second was aweful yesterday. Someone has got to knock that ball down to keep the runner at 3rd with 1 out. If I was Girardi, I would bench Betemit for a week and bench Cano for tonights game. That was one of the most lacidasical plays I have seen in a long time to cost the Yankees a game.

Ponson goes tonight and the Yankees need to pull off a sweep. 8.5 out with 44 games to go is going to be a tough thing to overcome. 4 out in the wild card but the Yanks need to focus on the AL East.

Will September 21st be the last game played at Yankee stadium??? It would be a shame for the stadium to go out like that.

45 games to go. I felt they had to go 6-4 on this road trip to stay in contention. The Yanks now need to go 4-0 the rest of the way. They have a chance to do it with Pettitte on the mound today and a sweep in Minnesota. Even if the Yanks go 3-1 the rest of this trip, it would mean 5-5 on a tough road trip.

7.5 out of AL East and 4 out of the wild card, it is not going to be easy.

Giese looked good yesterday which was real nice. Tough loss with the bullpen blowing the game in the 8th. Too many bad losses this year. Going to be a lot of regrets if they do not make the playoffs.

After the drubbing last night, the Yankees need to go 4-1 the rest of the road trip.

Kennedy did not look much better than earlier in the year. Hi tries to be too perfect. Tough to gauge against a good hitting Angels team. He will probably get one more start. If Hughes is healthy, he will come up and replace Kennedy unless Kennedy looks real good in his next start.

5.5 and 3.5 are the magic numbers. The Sawx lost last night so it would have been nice to pick up a game in the wild card standings.

The Yankees really need to make a run. 7 game streak, 9 out of 10 streak and pick up a quick 3-4 games in the standings. Time is running out.

The one silver lining is the schedule gets a little easier after the next 5 games. They still need to go 4-1 the last 5 games. Big game today with Giese on the mound.

15 wins for a guy that was supposed to be washed up 3 months ago. He looks a lot like Maddux these days and Maddux won a lot of games changing speeds and zones. Without him, the Yankees are under .500 and looking at 2009.

5 1/2 games out with 47 to go. Big 6 games coming up. The Yankees really need to go 4-2 and pick up another game in the AL East standings before their schedule gets a little easier and they get a little healthier.

I am really rooting for Kennedy tonight. If he can be productive, it would be a huge boost. Then if Hughes comes back in a couple weeks. Holy crap, the Yanks may have depthy in their starting rotation again.

Word id I-rod is back tonight which will help the lineup.

Will the 4 game rest help Cabrera? My hunch is his starting job is hanging by a thread.

Do the Yankees have anyone that can fill Betemits spot? He is a strikeout master.

Did you see the On Base Percentages of the lineup last night? Seemed like most of the team was below .300. I know this is not the days of Boggs and Mattingly on the team where they would take 10 pitches every at bat but the team really needs to improve their OBP to be a force.

It is pretty simple, to score runs, you have to be on base. There was a reason Brosius could drive in almost 100 runs and hit .250. It was because there were guys on base for him to knock in.

I am not asking for the whole team to have a .400 OBP, but Kevin Long needs to work with the guys to start taking some walks.

48 games to go. Still 6 1/2 out of the AL East.

The Yankees now have to go 5-2 the rest of the road trip to stay alive. That means win tonight and take 2 out of 3 versus the halos and twinkies. Wow, that is going to define this team. If they can do that with all the injuries they have right now, it will show me a lot.

I was one of the guys that wanted Ponson gone a month ago but I have to eat crow and say he is a good #4 starter right now. He has good stuff but like many pitchers it is about location, location, location.

Looks like Kennedy is set to start Friday night (location is the theme there too) and Giese Saturday. One of those 2 guys can become a decent #5 guy. The gapping whole in the rotation is the #3 guy. With Wang and Joba hurt, there is really no one to fill it right now.

Cano arguing with the umpire is NOT how to finish a play. You are alway taught to finsih a play, no matter how bad the call is. Remember Knoblauch in the 98 playoffs? I know it is much easier to say than do but good baseball players do it. Good thing the umps got it right and called it a catch. It shows Cano has some growing up to do as a baseball player. He has the talent, now he needs the baseball tools.

Thank the good Lord upstairs that Pudge only has a bruised knee. A torn up knee would have been devastating. Moose likes to throw to Molina so he will catch tonight. Hopefully Pudge will be ready for Friday night in Anaheim.

Reports are that Wang is still on crutches and can put some wait on his foot. His right leg is weak and he has not thrown in a long time. Middle September is a very aggressive time frame for him to return. The team does not want to rush him back and have him hurt his arm. He has had a shoulder injury in the past.

Another loss last night as Pettite get smacked around. Ponson goes tonight. Not looking good.

If there was ever a very deep hole, the Yankees are in it. 30 games on the road, 19 at home. A rotation that is in rough shape. A line-up that is very streaky.

It is going to take a lot of heart to get a streak going this month. They really need to go 6-2 the rest of this road trip to make a statement. Going to be tough with 2 more against a hungry Rangers team and 3 against a very good Angels team and 3 against a very good Twinkies team.

Ouch, that one hurt. Hopefully Joba just has a tired arm and will miss 1 start. Up 3-0 on the road, the Yanks need to win that game.

If they go 30-20 over the last 50, they will end up with 91 wins which will be tough to get into the playoffs with. Plus they have a lot of games on the road. Now they need to go 6-3 on the trip. It gets tougher and tougher with each tough loss to make the playoffs.

It is a very tough challenge to compete and build for the future. Not a lot of teams succeed at doing it. It has been a tough year with not much going right for the team. Wang, Posada, Jeter, A-rod have all missed time with injuries. The silver lining is the team has a strong farm system, did not sell the future this year at the trading deadline and have about 80 million coming off the books next year.

I personally think Kennedy and Hughes are huge. They have some experience and if they can develop into good starters it will help immensely. A rotation next year of something like Joba, Wang, Moose/Pettite, Kennedy and Hughes with all of them pitching to their ability will not be an expensive rotation and be pretty good.

Pettite needs a big start tonight.

I know it is avery very very tough job but doing a bad job when working a tough job is still not cool. The umpires were aweful last night. Calling stupid balks, missing calls, etc. I read one umpires lips when talking to A-rod and he said “You think you can f%&k&*g talk to me like that”. What arrogance. What stupidity. Back when I was growing up, the umpires were the authority but they were not doped up on power. They knew who they were, made calls (good and bad) and kept their cool. An umpire was suspended this year for acting like a jerk. Umpires are just a microcosism (sp?) of society today. The theme for this country is “It is all about ME”. On the fan they had a recording of a woman who called 911 because she got the wrong burger in the drive thru at Burger King. Good Lord, what is the world coming to.

Yeah, that is what she said.

Huge win yesterday. At least the Yanks split the series and have some momentum going into a tough 10 game road trip. They should have won Friday which would have really helped.

61-50 with 51 games to go. 5.5 out of first. A nice 39-12 finish would be great. They need to start by going 6-4 on this road trip. Time is running out.

It will be interesting to see who will start Friday night. I cannot imagine they send Rasner out again. He is 2-7 with about a 7 ERA since his hot start. Kennedy is lined up and hopefully will get another chance. He cannot do much worse than Rasner lately.

Ponson shocked the world and will get another start this week against his former team. I still cannot see him pitching very good long term. Hopefully Hughes can come back in a couple weeks. Reports are he looks very good (hitting 95 on the guns) down in Charleston.

I was suprised to hear Girardi say that Wang will not be ready until October 1st. Being cautious or being real? Wang just got his boot off and will be off crutches hopefully this week. It will be tough to be back September 1st. The issue is minor league team seasons end the beginning of September so where is he going to get work after September 1st? I think a lot of it comes down to where they are in the standing September 1st and who is healthy/pitching well. If Kennedy and Hughes can pitch like they did last year than no rush. If Ponson and Rasner and Kennedy and Hughes are all stinking up the joint, they may rush Wang back.

Joba needs to really make a statement tonight and shut down a very good hitting Rangers team. The Yanks should score runs so holding down Hamilton and company will be the key wo winning 3 out of 4 against the Rangers.