Mo Blues

They're not a particularly good team, but for whatever reason the Orioles seem to have the Yankees' number ths year. Today marks the first time the Yankees have lost a series and two consecutive games since the last time they played Baltimore.

Today's loss came courtesy of Mariano Rivera's Annual Summer Swoon. It really seems like he has a couple of bad weeks this time of year, and we all panic about life without Mo. By September he'll have bounced back into shape and we can marvel at his excellence all over again. Hopefully. Of course the question is whether or not the Yankees can manage to survive while Rivera works things out, and there was evidence in today's game that they could in the form of Edwar Ramirez, who replaced Jim Brower on the roster. I can't understand why this move wasn't made weeks ago. Don't get me wrong, I can understand the skepticism as to whether a guy who lives and dies with his changeup can be an effective major league reliever, no matter how fantastic his success in the minors. What I can't understand is thinking that Jim Brower would be any better.

Then there's the fact that the next four games (and eight out of the next eleven) come against Detroit, who has been playing some truly craptastic baseball lately, winning only 7 of their last 20 games. It sounds like a good way to get within striking distance of Boston by the time they come to town at the end of the month.