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

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