maybe not the biggest blow, but you are going to tell me that Karstens’ injuries didn’t hurt this team? The guy had a good spring, was poised to be the 5 (and relegate Igawa to the minors, where Igawa belongs). As for Pavano, that’s a different story. Just maybe Karstens (and Rasner?) could have stabilized the 4 or 5 spots in the rotation and/or helped to stabilize the bullpen had they been put there after Clemens joined the team. Instead, the 4/5 have been a mess, and the injuries helped force the Clippards, Wrights and DeSalvos into the rotation before they were ready.

Seriously, who would you rather see out there right now, leaving Hughes out of the mix? Karstens, Igawa, DeSalvo, Wright, Clippard? Which one out of that mix?

Wake up and grow up. Isn’t it past your bedtime ???

“Every once in a while, you get it handed to you,” said Yankees starter Mike Mussina, who allowed six runs in 4 2/3 innings. “Obviously, I didn’t pitch very well at all, and we played kind of flat.

“We were never really in it today. We’ve got a long day tomorrow and we’ve got to come out and play with a little more energy, and get our heads in the right place, and get going in the right direction again. We can’t afford to get down and lose a handful of games in a row.”

“It was an unusual start for Moose, because it looked like he had real good stuff in the first two innings,” manager Joe Torre said. “Spotting pitches, he looked like he was good. In the third inning, it looked like he wasn’t missing by a lot, but he was just getting in some bad counts.”

Torre absolved Ramirez of the blame for his ineffective performance, saying that it had more to do with his lack of regular work than any dearth of physical ability.

Ramirez struck out the side in his Major League debut on July 3 and recorded four outs on July 6 against the Angels, but hadn’t pitched since, his service relegated to the bullpen mound.

“Ramirez just hasn’t worked,” Torre said. “We had no idea what to expect when we brought him in. We knew the only time he was going to get the call would be in situations like this. … That’s just the product of that.”

New York Yankees Website

This is the funniest post ever. Vinny, you can’t even spell acumen right, let alone show any. Bwahaha!

It has nothing at all to do with sanctimony, it has to do with baseball accumen, which you obviously have little of, judging by a couple of your comment’s tonight.

“That inning took off and we never really recovered. We played kind of flat. We were never really in the game today.”

What is this WE thing??!! Yeah they were never in the game because HE is the one that gave up 5 runs in 5 innings to a AAA team and got beat up by the 8th and 9th hitters like he always does. He always blames it on the offense when he is awful. I am soo sick of his act already. Good thing they have Hughes to replace Igawa but someone should replace him!! He has been terrible this season. I am glad Cashman signed a 38 year old to a 2 year deal and now we are stuck with him for next year.

Spare us the sanctimony, Mr. Capital Letters. Just tell us how a pitcher improves when HE’S ON THE BENCH FOR TWO WEEKS.

Kind of makes you think twice about some of the arm chair GM’ing that goes on in here.

That said, the best point of the night and I think the point Pete needs to understand frustrates us as fans is that you can’t write about how Mo loses his effectiveness/sharpness without regular work and then slam a kid who didn’t get into a game for 2 weeks.

I was hoping Edwar would come in and stop the bleeding, but he opened up the jugular tonight. If he gets banished back to Scranton, I think it’s not fair, but he’s also not the difference maker this team needs. This team needs it regular players to just show some consistency and play to their capabilities.

Watching Abreu’s futile attempt in RF tonight was just sad. I know how important he is to this lineup, but I have to be honest — if we can swap him for Dye for the rest of this season, I think I’d rather watch Jermaine play for his free agent contract here than watch the up and down nature of Abreu.

It just feels like we’re waiting for the real Yankees to show up and sadly, I think we’ve been watching them all season.

I’m still hopeful we can catch Boston — they’re as much of a mess as we are.