Exasperation

That pretty much describes my sentiments on watching the Yankees this season. Every up seems to be quickly met with a down. The Pinstripers seem to be permanently locked right around the .500 position, with little hope to move either up or down by a significant degree.

Mike Mussina pitched an excellent game yesterday afternoon and ended up losing. Statheads might have noticed that he had the highest game score of any starting pitcher yesterday (as noted over at baseballreference.com) - but still was on the losing team.

Does anyone remember Chien Ming Wangs brilliant outing where the Yankees lost 1-0?

On the other side of the pitching coin you have all those starters who left the game before the 5th inning. Then the crazy bullpen antics of Farnsworth and Hawkins who, for a while there, seemed to be having a competition to see who could give up the most runs.

Mariano Rivera has been one of the most dominating closers in the league yet in 2 of the last 3 games, he's failed to hold onto a tie.

The offense goes from scoring 10 runs to scoring 0. Giambi goes from cold to hot while others just flirt with mediocrity. A-Rod has had some big hits, but isn't quite living up to his paycheck.

I don't have any great suggestions or answers for what I would do to turn this team around. They lack any consistency. Perhaps Joe Girardi could pick a lineup and stick with it rather than changing every day. Players come and go on a regular basis due to the injury bug and a little roster stability would probably help.

All in all, it's been a frustrating season. Every time you think the Bombers are turning things around, they sink right back to average.

So far I haven't seen too many young prospects looking ready to take the reigns for next year. I'll put Chamberlain, Geise and Gonzalez in as new (not necessarily young) guys who are ready to take over. Other than that, I don't see much fresh blood. I'm officially calling Kennedy and Hughes a bust. Duncan isn't going to get any better, and no one else looks ready to move up from the minors. A lot of people are calling for Gardner to come up to NY, but I'm not sure he's going to be anything more than a mediocre bench player. The list of old guys who are past their prime, ready to retire or be let go at the end of the season is too long to type here.

At this point in the season, I'm pretty down on the team. I don't see much reason to hope that things will straighten out and the team will make a run for the wild card. I don't see a whole lot of improvement coming for next year's roster. Eventually, I think the Yanks are going to have to cut some dead weight, give a few younger guys some major league playing time, and make quite a few offseason moves.

Some of the blame has to fall on Joe Girardi. I'll give him a pass for his first year and will  put him on the hot seat day one of next season. He's done too much roster shuffling, made some questionable calls about who to play when and hasn't done much to impress anyone or show that he's capable of filling Torre's shoes.