On the Yankees beat

Abreu strikes again! 1st and 2nd 1 out and he hits into a double play. They walked Jorge intentionally to pitch to Abreu. Nieves, Melky, Phillips and Abreu - 4 automatic outs in tonights lineup.

Ramirez at Scranton tonight went 3 innings struck out 6 lowered his ERA to .68.. CAN THIS GUY GET A SHOT AT THE SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

STUART

I was thinking the same thing.Ramirez just keeps posting great numbers;
43 IP
80 SO
0.68
What does it take??????

Watching Farnsworth tonight makes one scratch ones head.Why are they so slow in moving Ramirez to the bigs.

Ruse, do you think possibly management feels the Yankees are no longer in contention this year being sub-500 with half the season gone? It's not even a matter of the Yankees winning that will get us back into the running, but too many strong teams need to start losing for us to secure a Wild Card spot, and Boston shows no signs of totally breaking down (and that's what would need to happen).

I'm trying not to be pessimistic, but when you have to rely on other great teams losing big time in order to even be in contention, 2007 doesn't seem very promising. Maybe this is why we are saving our best for next year, where we can start out healthy (hopefully) and become contenders (and stay that way) throughout the season.

Personally, it's hard for me to get my hopes up that we can salvage this season when we need to win not only above and beyond the norm (with many long streaks), but we also need to depend on bad performances by so many other solid teams that are also winning consistently.

Maybe we should save our best for 2008? What do you think?

LUCY

I have no illusions.If the Yanks have a successful homestand .7-2. That would get them to 44-41.50-21 last half is a stretch for this team or any team for that matter.Alot depends on how NY finishes the month of July.My guess is 85-89 wins for this team.That's about as realistic as I can be.Teams can catch fire.

Ruse, your thinking is very practical. I know you hold no illusions and that's why I sought your opinion on the matter.

Regarding Ramirez or any other minor league pitcher, I would hesitate bringing them up to save this losing team at this juncture. I think that's asking too much of these newbies and it might prove to be harmful to their careers. I think a minor league pitcher should be brought up at the beginning of the season or when the team is doing well enough so that they are not asked to carry the team. I feel that was the cause of failure, to some degree, of our rookie pitchers who were brought up too soon under adverse conditions. I just hope we didn't totally ruin some of these guys, like Wright and DeSalvo.

Also, I wonder whether Hughes also felt too much pressure to succeed, since he was brought up sooner than expected out of desperation. Two injuries to such a young player in such a short period leads me to believe the cause might be stress-related. Physical injuries are sometimes caused by psychosomatic problems.

I am resigning myself to the idea that 2007 is lost (if we bounce back, it will be a pleasant shock), and I am now looking forward to seeing these phenoms we've been hearing so much about starting out fresh and ready to go in 2008. I hate the idea we've become non-competitive so early in the season, but I wouldn't risk ruining our minor league pitching hopefuls in the hopes of saving an already hopeless season.

LUCY

Ramirez is a relief pitcher .His impact would come down to holding leads as a middle reliever.His presence would also allow the Yanks to send Farnsworth packing.Ramirez is having an unbelievable season and to me it would be a waste of time if he were to stay at SWB .Scouts say he has the best change- up in minor leagues .I suspect he gets called up after the Allstar game.

Ruse, I certainly understand your reasoning, but "holding leads" are key words at the moment. There haven't been too many leads lately. If the Yankees make another run for it, where they show there's some potential for saving the season, I can see using rookie pitchers in a more positive atmosphere. At the moment, a rookie relief pitcher seems to be just one piece of a puzzle that has too many other missing pieces. I don't know that I'd risk using a rookie pitcher (even in relief) when the team is failing so miserably. I hope I'm not being too prematurely pessimistic, though.