By Geoff Walter / SNY.tv

 

At some point Yankee fans have to question if this 2007 team is the true one they will be getting and not what people say they are truly capable of, which is supposedly only slumbering beneath the surface. Only three players have lived up to their billing this year: Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, and Alex Rodriguez. Sure, you could blame the first two months of the season on injury, but now it is almost July and the All-Star break is right around the corner. On their current road trip they have lost seven-of-eight and have succeeded in losing more ground in both the division and wild card races after valiantly chipping away at the Red Sox then 14-game lead in the AL East.

For all their inspirational conceits that have always been invoked, this is not 1978 anymore; it is 2007. Those Yankees can no longer be invoked; they are ghosts and spirits long since gone inhabiting memories and a Stadium that will soon join them. That team had Ron Guidrey, a 25-game winner, throwing for them. While Louisiana Lightning is still in pinstripes, he is now only their pitching coach, and only one of the five Yankee starters has a winning record: Chien-Ming Wang.

Three players cannot carry this team, and Wang only pitches every five days. Hope for the division crown evaporated when the Rockies swept the Yankees off the mountain last week, and the road to the post-season requires a scramble over five other teams for the wild card slot from eight and a half games back. No team should ever concede any race, but in this summer that already feels as though it is dragging on excruciatingly long, even I have to admit that it feels as though the Yanks will eventually be playing meaningless baseball.

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