Easy Come, Easy Go

The Yankees big wins over Seattle seem like a thing of the long past, having now lost two straight to Baltimore.

Darrel Rasner looked good on Memorial day, giving up only one run in his six inning outing. Because his teammates failed to provide any run support during that time, Rasner got saddled with the loss. So far this season, I think Darrel has proven to be the biggest surprise and the best performing  fresh face.

Ian Kennedy left last night's game after pitching three innings and giving up four runs. Ike had a muscle strain near his ribcage. The number of Yankee injuries this season has been absolutely staggering.

Relief pitching proved to be the Yankees weak spot in Tuesday's late night game. Ross Ohlendorf gave up 4 hits and 4 ER in 2.1 inninngs to blow an early 4 run lead and later, Latroy Hawkins gave up 2 ER on 3 hits in the 11th to end the game. The night before Hawkins gave up 3 ER in 0.2 innings and Jose Veras gave up 2 ER over 1.1 innings.

The other big factor in last night's game was 3 errors by the Yankees and a baserunning mistake by Jeter. The errors really come back to haunt you in close games. Also, Jeter, who got thrown out taking too big of a lead at second (after successfully stealing) cost the team a potential game winning run with A-Rod coming to the plate.

Tonigh Joba Chamberlain is scheduled to pitch another extended outing. He may get a chance to start soon if Kennedy is out for an extended period of time.

It's hard to find too many silver linings in the clouds of the last two games. The Yankees had some offense but still left 8 and 9 runners on base. Darrel looked sharp in his start but the bullpen is coming undone. While I've been very high on Ohlendorf, he's really showing a lack of consistency. Latroy Hawkins is just plain bad. Veras had a bad outing and Farnsworth is completely unpredictable. Edwar Ramirez is looking like the only dependable bullpen guy right now, but that observation is based on very few appearances and doesn't account for much.

Just when you think these Yankees might be digging themselves out of a hole, Baltimore sends them sliding right back in.