Keyboard Quarterbacks

By Mark La Monica

Um, uh, er, uh, yeah. How about them Yankees?

Just two weeks ago they were chipping away at that 13.5 game lead the Red Sox held over them. Had it down to 8 games at one point.

Now, um, not so much. It's right back up to 11 games. Pick-up basketball games go to 11. Not American League East division leads with nearly half the season gone. You double-down on 11. Not walk in the winning run for fear of throwing a strike on a full count.

Eleven games. Not insurmountable. Not good, either.

Not when "pitchers" in the bullpen have names such as Scott Proctor and Kyle Farnsworth and inhabit uniforms belonging to the New York Yankees baseball club.

That "Chipping away" piece from June 11, although accurate at the time, looks more like slipping away now.

Red Sox Nation can breathe easier for now.

Slip, slip, slip.

Right now, I feel like Jim Carrey at the end of "Ace Ventura" when he tries pulling off Capt. Lois Einhorn's hair. "Boy that's really on there," Ventura says, trying to avoid embarassment as the cops and others watch Ventura try to explain that Einhorn (Sean Young) is really a dude named Ray Finkle.

The Yanks are slipping away.

Finkle is Einhorn.