The only thing was that Jeter, the cut-off man, was waiting for him to throw it to second, which was a shorter throw. Both runners tagged successfully.

When the inning was over, the cameras showed Jeter talking with Bernie. Jeter shrugged his shoulders and looked peeved. It's a funny thing, disposition, and baseball smarts. Here is Bernie, older than Jeter, and yet Jeter seemed like the veteran. Next, the cameras showed Torre speaking with Bernie, explaining--I presume--why the proper play was to throw the ball to second.

Bernie looked slightly exasperated, like a kid who knew he did something wrong, but was upset about it because he thought he was doing the right thing. (For him, the throw to third was not a bad one.) When the first hitter in the bottom of the sixth singled to center, Bernie threw the ball over Jeter's head, directly to Cano. I wonder if he was saying to himself, "See, I can make this throw, man."

Anyhow, they didn't get hurt by Bernie's play in the fifth, and Williams has never been known for his baseball IQ, but it was another example of the teams' careless, almost thoughtless, play.

That's it in a nutshell. Hitters will hit and pitchers will pitch then way they do... it is hard to change that radically. But we USED to be a smart, professional team. What happened? You can forgive 'slumps' and 'outages', but there is no excuse for the level of play we have seen.

Maybe Joe and the brass should focus less on individual players and start getting back to the basics of playing the game correctly.

It is important to win tonight going into Minn. Minn. has some injuries and we lucked out on their pitching, so taking the series is a reasonable expectation.... if they can get out of their quagmire tomight.

Great, now Matt Stairs goes deep.

Not that I think any firings or roster moves would help right now, they're just playing disgustingly bad. But then I would assume George isn't to pleased with being swept by the worst team in baseball, so you never know.

These guys get paid handsomely to perform to the best of their abilities. This sweep is is the product of poor effort, both mental and physical. And please don't anyone tell me that they ran into a buzzsaw in the form of the KC bullpen. Tonight they had 5+ innings to work over RYAN JENSEN but couldn't stop hacking at breaking balls in the dirt.

Don't pin this one on Torre, either. He's not the one getting picked off, missing the cut-off, throwing to the wrong base, or hanging lazy sliders over the heart of the plate. Unfortunately, however, he has lost the ability to motivate his players. So what now?

I feel your pain, man. I was in the exact same predicament. It was like watching cable access, sans the goofy charm. The last straw for me was when one of the "analysts" showered Womack with praise about what a great "on base percentage guy" he is. What?!