Depressed Fan

Peter Abraham has the scoop. Joba was placed on the 15-day DL (I assume). Chris Britton took his spot on the roster. It's always good to see Britton up in the bigs, seeing him in the game, however, usually means the Yanks are getting blown out.

The fact that Joba was put on the DL might not mean anything, it was probably a foregone conclusion, even if his MRI was clean. For the team, however, this means they will have Rasner, Geise and Ponson in the rotation, unless they call up Ian Kennedy, but I'm not sure we can count on him to be noticeably better than those three.

The Rays came back to beat the Indians, again, pushing the Yanks 7 games back. On this date last year, the Yanks were 6 games behind Boston for the division, and had a 62-50 record (this year they're 61-52). That doesn't tell the whole story, though. Last year, the Yanks had outscored their opponents by 151 runs to this point. This year, they're +49 and sinking.

Granted, they're only 3.5 games out of the Wild Card, but with Joba missing at least his next 2 starts, Wang probably done until '09, Matsui basically the forgotten man and Girardi's negligent use of the pen, does anyone out there have confidence that the Yanks will make up that ground? Forgot to mention the few home games remaining too.

At this point, I think the Wild Card will only happen if the Sox fall flat on their faces, which I don't see happening. Even if the Yanks do manage to claw their way to the Wild Card lead, we're talking about the privilege of facing the Angels in the first round, without home-field advantage.

I suppose it isn't quite time to fold up the tents and wait for next year, but we're getting pretty damned close. Ponson looks to stop the bleeding for the Yanks tonight against another starter I've never heard of. I bet the no-name goes seven strong.