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Still no Yankees pick-ups as the team hordes its prospects for the day that Boston makes Babe Ruth available. If you’re not going to use these players at the Major League level, they only have value as trade chips. They’re a bit like sushi: you can’t put it in the fridge and use it a month from now. Still, things are apparently happening. The twitterverse says that the Yankees are out on Adam Dunn, are now dogging Lance Berkman’s footsteps. For those that missed the first few minutes of the film, here’s the Berkman recap (naturally, I am alluding to the great Swedish film director, Ingmar Berkman): He’s a career .296/.410/.549 hitter, but though he bats from both sides of the plate, most of the damage has been done from the left side. Batting against

As Matthew Pouliot writes, the Yankees lose disproportionately to pitchers they’ve never seen before. YES also had this as a graphic during last night’s game. Including Josh Tomlin, 11 pitchers have made their Major League debuts against the Yankees since 2000. For the most part, these pitchers are now well-established fringe types or have never been heard from again, with the exception being Josh Peavy. The Yankees have gone 3-8 in those games.

I haven’t done the research, but I also have the distinct impression that the Yankees have hit good pitchers better than bad ones, which is to say that if a pitcher comes into a game against the Yankees with an ERA of 3.30, he’s more likely to get thrashed than a pitcher who comes in with an ERA of 5.30. This is purely an

WAIT A MINUTE
MAYBE MY EARS ARE CLOGGED OR SOMETHING
MAYBE I’M NOT UNDERSTANDING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

I’m a bit reluctant to come down on a guy without knowing all the details, but if the Yankees had an agreement in principal and then the Mariners backed out because they were “concerned about David Adams’ ankle,” as Joel Sherman (who has been all over this story like yellow feathers on Big Bird) reported, then Jack Zduriencik is without honor. First of all, just how severe an ankle injury was it? Was his foot separated from his leg? Hell, was it such a high sprain that his head was separated from his neck? Short of something really radical like that, an ankle injury seems like too transient a cause to derail a trade. In addition, the Yankees had other infielders

THE SLUMP!

Can we call what the Yankees are going through right now, with the Yankees pushing past four runs just once in the last seven games a slump? Sure we can, because it has gone on a lot longer than that. After hitting .286/.367/.452 in April and May and scoring an average of 5.7 runs per game, they dropped off to .245/.333/.401 and 4.8 runs per game in June. It wasn’t just the Mariners or the six games played without the designated hitter in NL parks. The Yankees didn’t hit much in the first half of the month, then slid off as the days went on.

You can pick a half-dozen culprits. Brett Gardner (.383/.472/.533) and Robinson Cano (.333/.398/.510) had good months. Mark Teixeira was about average for an AL first baseman, which isn’t saying much this year. Everyone

It was the Yankees’ misfortune to suffer bad timing, to encounter Cliff Lee and Felix Hernandez, two of the best pitchers in baseball even if they are on a bad club, with two pitchers who were not up to matching their aces taking the mound in opposition. Since pitching seven shutout innings against the Tigers in his sixth start on May 12, Hughes has made eight starts, four of them quality, four of them factory rejects (there is no accepted term for a “not quality start,” but “irregular pants” or “mismatched socks” would do fine). His ERA for the period was threatening to crest the fragile barriers that hold the oily 5.00 water out at sea, and he finally did swamp the lowlands in tar against the M’s; his ERA since May 12 is now 5.33 in 49 innings.

Today’s subject line with apologies to Pete Townshend… Coming into the season, the Mariners were rated contenders for the AL West title. They had gone 85-77 last year despite being outscored on the season, and while that should have been a clue that the M’s were due to go backwards, offseason acquisitions such as Casey Kotchman, Chone Figgins, and Milton Bradley were viewed as giving them a sufficient offensive basis to support their already-strong pitching. That staff was augmented by the acquisition of Cliff Lee from the Phillies in one of the most bizarrely self-defeating trades in the history of that ballclub. The new Mariners didn’t figure to hit a lot, but the thought was that they could pitch and defend their way to a bunch of 4-3 wins.

Despite last night’s

FLABBERGASTED

Give Joe Girardi 10 points for pinch-hitting Jorge Posada for Curtis Granderson against tough lefty Hong-Chih Kuo, who coming into Saturday’s game had held left-handed hitters to a .000 batting average (0-for-24). Deduct 50 points for failing to pinch-hit for A.J. Burnett with runners on first and third and one out in the top of the fourth inning trailing the Dodgers 5-4. Burnett, in the process of being pounded for the fifth consecutive start, had nothing more to prove on Saturday -- he wasn’t better, despite much ballyhooed bravado after successful sideline and bullpen sessions -- and Girardi had nothing to prove to him; letting Burnett stay in so as to convey a message of confidence in him proved to be an oddly timed and foolhardy gesture. A real message of confidence

Given my almost total absence from the ol’ pulpit the last ten days or so, I didn’t get to say anything about the promotion of outfielder Colin Curtis from Triple-A Scranton. By now you’ve seen Curtis and it is certain that he is not a wiener-dog. It’s less certain that he’s a ballplayer, but he may be able to fulfill the small and likely transient role the Yankees have in mind for him.

Colin was a fourth-round pick back in 2006. He is now one of just two players selected in that round to make the Majors, the other being Astros third baseman Chris Johnson, who just helped push Pedro Feliz into a overdue, well-deserved benching. The Arizona State product was experienced enough to hit well in his first Minor league stops, batting .311/.374/.437 in 47 games in

COFFEE JOE ATTACKS!

I hate second-guessing the manager and try hard to restrict this feature to first-guessing or just avoid the topic altogether, because for the most part it’s just not worth doing. However, there are times when I just can’t resist. I usually restrict such thoughts to the playoffs, but Friday night’s game against the Mets provided an example so excruciating, and so topical, that we must proceed.

With the Yankees trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the seventh, Frankie Cervelli led off with a double. This brought Chad Huffman to the plate. Huffman is neither experienced nor a particularly great hitter, but the manager has to keep in mind that as a rule, a righty hitting against a righty is generally not going to be at as large of a disadvantage as a lefty hitting