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The Yankees are 12-8 in the their last 20 games, a .600 winning percentage. For most teams, even for the Yankees, that would usually be considered a very successful record. Why, then, does it seem like they have been slacking? First, the Yankees have mostly played better than .600 this year. In every April, June and July, they were winning more often. Only in May did they slip, and just slightly, to .552. Last month, they went 19-7. If you go 19-7 often enough, folks will start comparing you to the 1927 or 1998 Yankees. In contrast to July’s dominance, in their last ten games, the Yankees are 4-6, which is not just winning less often, it’s also not winning. They haven’t won more than two games in a row since the third week of July. But for two games in Toronto (starts

BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING
Here is the first thing you have to know: from the beginning of 2009 to this point in 2010, Jose Guillen has hit .198/.281/.305 against left-handed pitching.

Now we can start.

Over in the New York Post, the impressively grizzled reporter George King writes that the Yankees are “eyeing” Jose Guillen, designated for assignment yesterday by the rebuilding Royals. King writes:

With switch-hitting Berkman struggling against lefties it's likely he will DH against right-handed pitchers. That leaves Marcus Thames and Kearns from the right side and the question the Yankees have to ask themselves is Guillen better than either one of them because the hamstring problem has turned him into a DH.

If Guillen isn’t going to play the field, then the question for the

IN PRAISE OF GIRARDI/HERE COME THE RED SOX
In our last entry, I went on at great length about the untimely manifestation of Coffee Joe earlier this week. I meant to provide perspective by also mentioning some praiseworthy things that Joe Girardi has done this year. In the heat of the moment, I lost track of that goal and didn’t go beyond my indictment of Coffee Joe. I want to correct that now. He has, within certain limitations, constructed an excellent batting order this year. The main innovation has been batting Nick Swisher second. This is an untraditional choice, since nine times out of ten managers will still bat a banjo-hitting middle infielder second instead of a power bat. Swisher has completely changed his approach this year. He’s walking less but hitting for a higher

Or as Cole Porter wrote, it was just one of those things. Normally, Wallace Matthews of ESPN.com would have a very good point: why would Joe Girardi rest his regulars against their top division rival?

No Alex Rodriguez? No Brett Gardner? Berkman at first in place of Mark Teixeira? Kearns starting in left? If it wasn't for the name "Jeter" appearing where it is just about every day, at the top of the list, it would have been difficult to determine at first glance that this was a Yankees lineup card at all.

Thus did the Yankees go down quietly in the rubber game of a key series. The problem with getting exercised about this is that it really wasn’t all that key. Sure, the Yankees are now at greater risk of swapping places in the standings with the Rays, but they are also still 6.5

The Yankees might have violated a fundamental rule of the draft yesterday. I offered the qualifier “might have” because I don’t know Damon Oppenheimer and don’t claim to be able to read his mind or that of anyone else. Still, my first reaction when Cito Culver’s name was called was that the Yankees weren’t drafting the best player available, but rather for need—the need to try to replace Derek Jeter.

Jeter will turn 36 in about three weeks. No doubt many Yankees fans and the Yankees themselves wish he could go on forever, basic facts of our existence make that impossible. The Yankees have to prepare for a day when the only thing the Captain is hitting is soft tosses on Old Timer’s Day. It seems reasonable to assume that Jeter will be back

LONG TALL SALLY HAS LOST HER SPEED
It seems like the off-day brought a great many “Has Derek Jeter lost his groove to age?” articles -- we’ve got to fill column inches, or gigabytes, or whatever it is we online cats do. While worries about Jeter’s age are realistic and highly relevant given his contract situation, it’s a bit premature to write him off given that just over a quarter of the season is in the books. We can also accept the evidence of our eyes, bolstered by statistics; it doesn’t look like Jeter is slowing down, it looks like he’s confused. In recent weeks, the boundaries of his strike zone have expanded. He has hit more balls on the ground -- his groundball/flyball ratio is at a career high -- which is a hard way to hit safely, as even

COLD TOMMY JOHN HAS GOT ME ON THE RUN
Twins closer Joe Nathan has apparently torn his ulnar collateral ligament and may require Tommy John surgery. Should Nathan go out for the year, this would obviously be a loss to the Twins and to baseball in general -- as far as regular season play goes, Nathan is right up there with Mariano Rivera. Since 2004, Rivera has a 1.90 ERA and 243 saves, Nathan a 1.87 ERA and 246 saves.

Nathan's apparent demise is an important moment for Yankees fans. As the core of the current team ages, the same questions keep arising: How badly will the eventual passing of Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera affect the Yankees? The answer is likely to be, respectively, a lot, maybe less than you would think given the team's depth at the position, and possibly not

PEEKING THROUGH MY FINGERS
I can’t bear to look, so I have to ask: Has Ian O’Connor yet published a scorching tirade against Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes? Given that he tarred A-Rod for being questioned in the same investigation, these two pillars of the New York Mets should be guilty via the same associations. Not in the interest of fairness? No? Too bad…

THE NEXT SHORTSTOP
It’s almost a foregone conclusion that Derek Jeter will be back in pinstripes on a new contract after this season, but regardless of the length of his next contract, it is not too soon to start thinking about where the next Yankees’ shortstop will come from. Jeter may be a Yankee forever, but he might not be the Yankees’ shortstop for an equivalent span of time.

Though earlier this

I'm traveling today and not all that wired in at this writing, but so far that hasn't mattered much because Spring Training, at least Yankees Spring Training, has been on the slow side. Sure, there are a few interesting storylines—Jesus Montero, the fifth-starter duel, the left field mix—but Montero isn't going anywhere, the fifth-starter thing won't even give a hint of resolution for a couple of starts, and left field seems like a six of one/half-dozen of the other thing, so there's not much tension there.

I can dream of a different spring, a more compelling exercise full of stories that we would await with anticipation as we would the next Harry Potter novel. My top five wishes for a parallel-Earth Spring Training:

1. Derek Jeter is tutoring a 21-year-old shortstop who hit