A FINE MESS

Call em' what you like: listless, careless (nice tag, Soriano), even hapless (Godzilla). One thing is for sure, the Yankees are a slumping mess. My girlfriend Emily has been saying for over a month now that Hideki Matsui looks depressed. Maybe it's an epidemic.

Mike Mussina was cruising for the first four innings against the Reds, but then they tagged him for four homers, and the Yanks fell to the Reds, 6-2. The Bombers offense didn't put up much of a fight, and made Paul Wilson look like the ace he's not. In fact Wilson is the first Reds starter in 17 games to notch a victory. How do you think they are going to look against the likes of Kerry Woods?

Oy fuggin vey.

The Red Sox took two from the Pirates yesterday, and the Yanks find themselves in second place this morning.

But wait, it gets worse. The Yankees are now 0-18 when trailing after six innings this year. This is not your older brother's Yankees.

According to The Daily News:

Torre felt that the Yanks looked listless once the Reds' barrage was over.

"We certainly look that way," he said. "That shouldn't happen. We should be professional enough to go out and play nine innings. Not that we're not working hard. We're pressing.

"It just doesn't look like we're comfortable right now."

"This is more than a stretch now," Mussina said, referring to the Yanks' 10-19 stumble since May 3. "We just haven't played consistently good since we got out of April. We haven't gotten hot offensively or pitched consistently well.

"We're just not the same team. It's in there somewhere."

..."We're putting a lot of pressure on Contreras," Torre said. "Welcome to the starting rotation, right?"

It won't be long now before the Yanks go out and get some reinforcements. The Post reports that they have their eyes on Kenny Lofton. I've never been a Kenny Lofton fan, but I'd welcome him in place of a hacker like Juan Rivera in a New York minute.

I wish I had something wise or even funny to say (I'll leave the comedy to Boomski Wells). But I'm afraid I've been lulled into a depressed state myself. OK, I do have one positive piece of news to report: Jason Giambi appears to be coming around. He hit another homer last night (his fourth of the road trip), and has put together some very solid at bats recently. They need him now more than ever.