Middle of Yanks Line Up, Pitching Staff Fail to Show up Again

Mark Teixeira is slumping like it's April. Alex Rodriguez is following suit. Robinson Cano is cooling off.

Brett Gardner's average has dropped 54 points in two weeks and Francisco Cervelli's hot start seems like a mere memory now. The Yankees offense has been dormant for almost two weeks now, except for the two games against Boston.

Not to mention that the entire starting pitching staff is struggling at the same time, something that wasn't an issue before because at the beginning of the season everyone was pitching well at the same time.

Last night was just the latest sample, C.C. Sabathia. He struggled with his control, his velocity was down, he had poor pitch selection and his pitches were flat last night against the Mets. The Yanks suddenly are a season-high six games behind the Rays - who took the rubber game in Houston Sunday - in the AL East after another failed comeback bid in the ninth inning of Sunday night's 6-4 loss at Citi Field.

Hampered by a rash of injuries - and undermined largely by a poor week of pitching both in the rotation and in the bullpen - they went 2-5 in their challenge week against the Red Sox (1-1), Rays (0-2) and Mets (1-2). Yet as Joe Girardi said after this latest loss, "The sun will come up tomorrow."

"It's been a tough one," said Sabathia, who was tagged for six runs for the second time in his last three starts, including two homers by previously powerless Mets outfielder Jason Bay. "We have a veteran ballclub and we have to keep pushing through until guys get healthy and we get our full lineup back."

It's true that the Yankees are without one-third of their regular starting nine - Jorge Posada last week joining Curtis Granderson and Nick Johnson on the disabled list.

But fill-ins such as Francisco Cervelli, Juan Miranda, Kevin Russon and Marcus Thames have provided several key hits in recent games. Derek Jeter rapped three hits Sunday night to reach 2,800 in his career, but Teixeira was 1-for-his-last-26 before a fluke infield hit during the ninth-inning rally after Gardner had been called out on a close play at first.

"As far as the replay, you can't tell either way. If he gets on there for us, it's a big hit," said Girardi, who argued the Gardner call. "The replays, from what I understand, were not conclusive either way, so what are you going to do?"

Teixeira's second hit set the stage for Rodriguez as the go-ahead run against closer Francisco Rodriguez, but K-Rod fanned A-Rod on a full-count changeup to seal the Mets' rubber-game victory.

And, ultimately, that ninth could not fumigate the 26 Subway innings before that when the Yanks went 10-for-49 with men on base, 4-for-24 with runners in scoring position and had mustered all of six runs.

"It's right where you want to be, a great matchup. He gave me some pitches to hit but I fouled them back. . . . You wish you could have those back," A-Rod said. "But I think it was a good sign the last two innings. For a game that was 6-0 to come down the last at-bat, I'll take my chances there."

Still, asked about mounting disappointment over a week's worth of failure against divisional and geographical foes, Rodriguez acknowledged, "There's no question there is a lot of frustration, because we know we're capable of doing a lot more, but collectively we're just not getting it done right now."

Even before the game, Girardi had admitted "we've had better weeks, I think you could definitely say that." He listed what he described as a "multitude of problems," including a fallback in starting pitching, bullpen issues and an inability to hit in the clutch. At least I'm not the only one that sees the problems this team currently has.

Last night the Yanks had the leadoff man on against Johan Santana in each of the first three innings and did not score, and then did not get another hit until Cervelli launched a ball off the left-field wall in the seventh. The Yanks protested it was a homer, but upon replay review it was shown to have not cleared the orange line in left.

Regardless, Cervelli with all of one home run in his muscle memory assumed too much, went into a trot and ended up with a single. That was unacceptable -- or a pretty good summation of the week.

Derek Jeter perked up offensively with three hits last night, but that was somewhat negated by two grounders up the middle that he should have fielded and did not. His range to his left -- a non-issue last year -- is again problematic.

Gardner was installed in the two-hole, and was 0-for-13 against the Mets, and if you are wondering if the Yanks will miss Johnny Damon this season, that is a fair question. And to throw more salt into the wound, Teixeira, A-Rod and Cano finished the Subway Series without an RBI and combined to leave 19 runners on base.

"If you push the panic button every time you have a bad week, you'd probably push it more than once," Girardi said. "We just haven't played particularly well. . . . Obviously we want to get back to winning series after series and playing better."

This is not about panic. This is about Posada, Granderson, Johnson and Alfredo Aceves on the DL. This is about none of the big offseason moves (Vazquez, Granderson, Johnson, Chan Ho Park or Randy Winn) playing well. This is about the Core Four looking their age. This is about the No. 2 hole in the lineup becoming a sinkhole. This is about Jeter's limited range and Girardi's limited bullpen choices.

Now that George Steinbrenner is largely out of the picture, the Yankees preach constancy. C.C. Sabathia will have a bad start every now and then, Teixeira will slump and A-Rod will eventually lose a great battle. Yet the players' track records strongly suggest better times shortly ahead.

Maybe it is just a bad week. Or maybe the Subway was the latest revelation of a strong team going a bit off the rails.