The concept of "both."

The Yankee pitching is bad. Their first baseman is also bad. Their first baseman should not be compared to their pitching staff. He should be compared to other first basemen:

"Reading your e-mail, I think back to Friday night when the Yankees put up 11 runs and 16 hits against the Mariners -- both season highs -- and still lost.

Did the Yankees lose because they didn't have enough offense, and thus Mientkiewicz should be singled out? I don't believe so. Competent pitching solves a lot of the Yankees' woes, but when a team is losing, suddenly you're looking for scapegoats and the guy hitting under .200 is the easiest target of all."

Yes, they lost because they didn't have enough offense. When the opponent scores 15, your offense has to score 16. Because you lose when you score less runs than your opponent.

Last Friday night is not a good example. Ball Thief was 1-for-2 with a walk and a run scored.

But, in general, the argument does not hold water. A bad player is a bad player. It does not matter if his teammates are good.

The Yankees have a pitching staff with Mussina, Wang, Pettitte, Proctor, Farnsworth, Myers, and Rivera. I never heard anybody say, "It doesn't matter if Kei Igawa's ERA is 75.00. They should have enough pitching without Kei Igawa."

Stop defending Ball Thief because the other players on his team are good.

He is a bad baseball player. It doesn't matter which team he is playing for. Bad baseball players make the team worse.