Awww, you're just upset because Johnny Damon didn't make the playoffs. Johnny Damon with his .271 batting average and 8 HRs.

Let's see how many times Lupica can be wrong in two pages. Start with the headline:

"CC Sabathia is a sure thing for the Yankees, same can't be said for A.J. Burnett and Javier Vazquez"

1) If Sabathia is a sure thing, then you can make reservations for the parade. Sabathia is going to start 2 games in a 5-game series and perhaps even 3 games in a 7-game series.

2) Vazquez won't be on the postseason roster. Burnett should not be. So if the gist of this argument is that the Yankees overpaid for these two pitchers, then you're stating the obvious. But if you're trying to predict playoff doom for the Yankees, you shouldn't look at the back end of the roster.

"This is as disinterested a September as a top-shelf Yankee team has had in a long time."

3) Last year, the Yankees were disinterested in September and they won the World Series.

4) This has been the Yankee way for at least a decade.


"Only now, on the verge of another Yankee postseason, it feels as if the only reliable postseason rotation the Yankees have is CC Sabathia."

5) Pettitte is reliable.

6) Hughes is reliable.


"Whatever Girardi and Brian Cashman say, would ever say, the Yankees have approached their rumblin', bumblin' September as if they will do anything not to face Cliff Lee and the Rangers in the first round."

Errr ...

7) The last time the Yankees faced Lee, the Yankees overcame a 6-0 deficit.

8) When the Yankees started taking the pedal off the metal -- around Labor Day -- they had no way of knowing the Twins would win 10 in a row and, frankly, the Yankees still don't know who will win the AL East and who will win the wild card.


"It would be pretty amazing, the big, bad $200 million defending champion Yankees looking to avoid a Rangers team that hasn't been in the playoffs in more than a decade."

9) ??? Why would that be amazing? I think that could conceivably be wise, but I also think the Yankees have no way of planning the Universe like that. As if Cashman is commanding the Royals to beat the Twins and the Rays. I Decree it so.


"No worries, though. Once the season is over, the Yankees will throw money at Lee - less than Sabathia money, more than Burnett - and act as if they have some sort of brilliant plan at Yankee Stadium that doesn't involve spending a couple of hundred million dollars on starters every couple of years."

10) I think Lee will likely replace Pettitte. I don't know who will replace Vazquez (Ivan Nova?).

11) The Yankees can afford Lee because of Cashman's brilliant moves in the outfield. Who needs Carl Crawford or Jayson Werth? (Or Hideki Matsui? Or Johnny Damon? Or Melky Cabrera?)


"The season wasn't supposed to go anything like this. But Pettitte got hurt, because aging pitchers do."

12) All pitchers are aging. All entities in the Universe are always aging, every second of every minute of every day.

13) Lee got hurt.

14) Santana got hurt.

15) Strasburg got hurt.

So if you meant to say old pitchers get hurt, then you're using an invalid modifier.


"The Yankees weren't supposed to have to pitch Hughes in an emergency start against the Red Sox Sunday night. They did."

16) Oh, I remember. The unreliable Hughes knocking the Red Sox out of the playoff race. That was sweet.


"The Yankees weren't supposed to be rooting this hard for Burnett to show up in Toronto the other night with something resembling the stuff he showed us in the last postseason."


17) In last year's postseason, Burnett had one good start out of four.