BTW, game thread up.

Sabathia, Lee, Burnett, Pettite, Vazquez

That’s a pretty obscene rotation and Phil would really help lock down the bullpen.

(reminds me of a Souls at Zero song…)

[10] huh. well then…

So 2011 could be CC, A.J., Lee, Pettitte (?) Hughes.

And Yankees would still have Posada as C/DH, Frankie as BUC, and Romine or Montero.

It seems to me when Mo blows a save as he did when he gave up the grand slam, the team follows that invariably with a slump. I wonder if there are any stats on that or I’m imagining it.

The bullpen worries me these days. And no, not Mo.

Spot-on analysis as always, although the one thing I would take issue with is that I find the offense to be a bigger concern than you do. Sure, they’ve been putting together late rallies, but that’s only because at those points in the game they’ve either been (a) facing an inferior pitcher to the starter, (b) in too deep a hole for the other team’s pitcher to pitch to them as carefully as said pitcher might in a closer game, or (c) both.

The team needs to be able to score runs in innings 1-6 if it’s going to start stringing together wins. Comeback wins are all well and good and make for a comforting stat (“Would ya look at that — this team is never out of a game!”), but it’s pretty taxing on the offense to constantly have to dig itself out of four-plus run holes.

The top of the order has clearly not been getting it done — combined with an NL-worthy bottom half, and it’s been pretty ugly at the plate of late for the Yanks. Granderson can’t come back soon enough, nor can Good Tex. I’d also love to see Jeter start taking pitches again and not grounding out to short on the first pitch in every at-bat.