One Star Shines Amidst Myriad of Problems

Starters
The starting pitching inevitably starts, and ends, with Unit. Another pair of terrible starts in two big spots. Blowing a 4-0 lead at Shea was one thing, then he goes out and labors through 5 innings at Fenway. Right now, I don't even want to send him to the mound. He is seriously no better than a fifth starter on most teams, if you go strictly by performance not name. The stats don't lie, he is good for about 5 or 6 runs over 5 innings, that's enough to get pitchers waived or relegated to the bullpen. The same of professional sports, particularly baseball, is that will never happen because of his salary. The Yanks need to do somehting with him. If this continues, I think they should do something that involves him not making any more starts until he fixes something. Obviously with Chacon down this is hard to do, but once he returns I would strongly consider benching Johnson. I would hope the Yanks can find someone to nurse them through 5 or 6 innings and keep them in a game, which is more than what Johnson is doing. Moose keeps going strong, although he looked very hittable against the Royals early last night, but bounced back. Wang needs to be more consistent but has shown flashes, Wright has been surprisingly good but let's see if he can avoid getting hit with another line drive.

Bullpen
Out in the bullpen, everyone that says Rivera is a problem has it all wrong. The problem is getting to Mo. Everytime Rivera comes into a jam in the 8th that is the problem. Sometimes Torre has way too quick of a trigger finger, but like the saying goes you never get fired for going with your best. I am very high on Scott Proctor but he has been roughed up this week in Boston and last night against KC, after some strong outings at Shea. His biggest problem is the old bases on balls. Explain how you walk the two guys batting ahead of Ortiz and Ramirez in Boston. It's obviously easier said then done, but come on here thats a big spot and bad performance. And Farnsworth is not much better, some nights he is a world-beater and other nights here comes Joe calling on Mariano to bail the Yanks out of a Farnsworth mess. The more that happens, the less of a chance the Yanks have in the long run. And what happened to Ron Villone being a big off-season pickup? He hardly gets in outside of mop-up duty. I expected to see him in some big 7th inning spots.

Bright Side
Jeter reached 2000 career hits last night with one of those classic swinging bunts that didn't even reach the pitchers mound. But what says the most about Derek is that on the first pitch after getting a standing O for the milestone hit, he takes off and steals third and in turn helps the Yanks get on the board. That's Jeter in a nutshell. Then there is A-Rod, a whole other story for another day.

By the way, is Manny still watching that homer sail out of Fenway? And a better question, can someone please knock him on his rearend after that. I don't care who hits it, don't let anyone show up one of your teammates like that. I'm surprised Torre didn't go do something himself. Do you think Frank Robinson would have stood for that? And Manny, come on, run for christ sake.