Meanwhile in your annual Yankee Scare...

The Mets put the screws in during a 2-game Subway Series sweep. Yesterday was kind of expected, with Johan Santana winning... but tonight's 11-2 crush left the worst team that money is currently buying 6 games back in the AL East, and yes, last place.

This should be the low-water mark, in that Alex Rodriguez is due back on Tuesday, which will allow the team to stop playing Morgan Ensberg, who might be the worst player in the American League right now. To give you an idea, Ensberg's combined on-base and slugging (.533) is less than just the slugging percentage of several other MLB players. That's, um, bad... and he doesn't even play a middle infield position. Right now -- still! -- the Yanks don't project to have a single player with 100 RBIs or 100 Runs.

(An aside... how many years will the Yankees manage to have sub-replacement level players in the wings? We're talking about a franchise with money and older players. There's absolutely no excuse for being so unprepared for an injury that you're reaching for the likes of Will Nieves last year, and Morgan Ensberg this year, for production. Honestly, the A's get more out of their AAA players.)

Pitching-wise, it's actually been better than you might have expected, given that Ian Kennedy and Philip Hughes have been utterly awful. They've gotten a couple of decent starts out of retread Darrell Rasner, Mike Mussina is actually 6-3 with a 3.99 ERA, and Mariano Rivera is quietly having one of his best starts. But you do get the sense that while the offense will pick up, the pitching isn't going to ever be that great this year, even when they do get Joba Chamberlain in the rotation. (Having Wang get torn apart by the previously struggling Mets tonight, of course, did not help.)

Besides, the usual Yankee path to getting over terrible starts -- i.e., pounding the stuffing out the sad sack Rays, Jays and O's -- might not be that easy. If the season ended today, Tampa would take the wildcard, and while it's hard to imagine that will continue, it's not hard to imagine they'll stay a .500 team.

So... is *this* the year when the Yankees finally miss the playoffs? No. And if this is a double jinx, then you are clearly too cynical, really. They'll be fine!