The biggest concern I have with the Yankees at this point in Ron Villone. Torre relied on him A LOT this season and he had a great first half and was solid for the first part of the second half...however, our top lefty reliever with a career ERA of over 5.00 has sported these numbers over the past six weeks:

IP--13.2
ER--25
ERA--17.04
BB--17
K---17
HR-5 (had given up 3 all season prior to Aug 17th)
WHIP--3.33

Ron Villones ERA on Aug 17th--2.43

Ron Villones ERA now--4.71

as long as Mariano is healthy we're fine

Proctor, Farnsworth, Bruney, and in case of emergency Lidle can provide some setup time

Mo is all that matters

I agree we should be ok in the pen ...as long as Mo is healthy. Where do we go with the rotation? Looks like Randy might pitch game one .....I assume that Wright is slated still at #4 correct ?

:beer:

yeah i assume Wright is going to be ahead of Lidle

I'm not sure how many teams have won the WS in recent history without a reliable lefty to go one or two innings from time to time. I sure don't want it to be Myers, but it might have to be with the way Villone is pitching.

Mo is the key, but you need the middle men to step up. During the championship run we had Stanton and Nelson who consistently came in and were nails out of the bullpen. Mendoza was used in longer relief. I don't see any of these guys to be as reliable as those guys were. You can blame Torre all you want, but at this point Villone is a piece of crap.

Mo is the key, but you need the middle men to step up. During the championship run we had Stanton and Nelson who consistently came in and were nails out of the bullpen. Mendoza was used in longer relief. I don't see any of these guys to be as reliable as those guys were. You can blame Torre all you want, but at this point Villone is a piece of crap.

That's kind of the point I was making about Villone. He's been a mediocre pitcher (at best) for the majority of his career and while it was nice to see him pitch well earlier in the year, I wasn't sold on it and my feeling was that he was going to become what he is, which is a guy with an ERA in the 5.00 range as our only regular lefty out of the 'pen.

In the meantime, Matt Smith has yet to give up a run this season sporting a 0.00 ERA.

I realize he was a key to getting Abreu but I remember thinking at the time the I wish they could have parted with a different prospect or two to keep Smith as insurance once Ron Villone started to pitch like Ron Villone.

Ron Villones arm is shot right now. I do not want to see him throw a pitch for us in the playoffs.

This whole L/R thing is overrated when it comes down to stuff. Right now, Villone has no stuff. Let Bruney pitch the 6th inning or 7th inning if needed be, even if there are 2 leftys due up. Mike Myers still has some value to get that 1 lefty batter out.