Not winning any awards

Fastball: 88-92 mph
One game at rookie minimum salary: $2,345.68
"Yankee Clippard" headlines: one dime per dozen
Beating the Mets: useless.

I mean, gee, that leaves them all of 10½ back, right? Down to 9½ now that they've beaten Boston tonight, but really... the Yankees are supposed to feel good all of a sudden about their team? Yippee, the Orioles and Devil Rays didn't catch us tonight! And we only have six pitchers on the disabled list!

Now, you may say that's a little harsh. They do have A-Rod and Jeter on the left side of the infield. And Posada's a pretty good catcher, hitting very well this year. And there's this guy:

.253/.336/.358, 9 hr, 17 sb

Lousy OPS, and the slugging is strangely down for a guy with 9 homers... oh, wait, my bad. That's not a guy. That's the ENTIRE OUTFIELD. That's 614 plate appearances - 533 at-bats, 67 walks, 4 hbp and 10 sac hits/flies. Add Giambi and the line goes to .257/.350/.377, with six more dingers. That's no way to live.

To put it in perspective, check this line:

.317/.380/.476, 9 hr, 6 sb

Not as much speed there, but a very good on-base average, decent slugging, and believe it or not, the exact aggregate extra-base-hit line - 25 doubles, 2 triples, 9 homers - only in 353 total at-bats, rather than 533. (You can't make this up.) Whose outfield is this? It's the Mets outfield, WITHOUT Carlos Beltran. Add him the way we added Giambi above and the line moves to .311/.381/.493, with 8 more homers and 7 more steals, in 24 fewer plate appearances than the Yankees' five-man gang.

Pitching? The Yankees will presumably drop this guy for Clemens. So it's Rocket, Mussina, Pettitte, and Wang with Sir Soon to Be on the DL, trying to outdo the Red Sox by 10 games over the rest of the season. Granted that the Boston outfield is hitting almost as badly (Crisp and Drew are ridiculously bad right now), but that's a tough call.