June Swoon

The Yankees have continued to falter in June and have now fallen to 9-10 for the month. They have lost four of six to the dregs of the NL East and have continued to falter in interleague play.

While everyone has derided the Yankees bullpen for much of the season, the pitching staff and especially the bullpen, has been the team's strength over the past two weeks. The starters have a 4.40 ERA for the month, a respectable number, but the bullpen has been great, pitching to the tune of a 2.87 ERA for the month and as soon as the Yanks bounce Brett Tomko they will get that much better.

The bats have been the Yankees biggest deficiency. A-Rod has disappeared while Derek Jeter has been mired in a 3-17 slump. The team as a whole is only hitting .247 in June. After not losing a single game all season when allowing three runs or less, the Yankees have now lost three such games in their last five. What is worse about those particular losses is that two of them came against the Nationals, the worst pitching team in baseball.

The Yankees bats need to get off the snide and fast. Sure its only June and sure it's only four games, but the fact is that when the Yankees take the field on Tuesday, it will have been two weeks to the date when the walked into Boston with a one game lead in the division. They were 11 games over .500 at that point. That number is down to seven. Oh, how the time flies by. It isn't time to panic yet but the Yankees need to get themselves in order. The Sox will have a swoon of their own of course, but if the Yankees fail to leave themselves in a position to take advantage then it could be a long summer.