Weekend Buzz: Tough times for depleted, desperate Yankees

ANAHEIM -- The Weekend Buzz while you were wondering exactly what John Edwards could have possibly been thinking ...

1. Yankee doodles, not so dandy: The most astounding occurrence of 2008 is not Tampa Bay's rousing success, Josh Hamilton's storybook summer or the way the Cubs are slicing and dicing every opponent that dares come through Wrigley Field.

Ian Kennedy's demotion to the minors doesn't make it any easier for the Yanks' depleted pitching staff. (AP)

No, the most amazing thing of the entire summer is the fact that it's the second full week of August and Yankees phenoms Ian Kennedy and Phil Hughes have zero wins between them.

That fact was magnified again this weekend when Kennedy received his latest blistering, this one Friday night in Anaheim, 10-5. Then the weak Yankees bullpen imploded Saturday, then they couldn't get a key hit Sunday and, after "first baseman" Wilson Betemit watched Chone Figgins' slow-motion bouncer roll by him in the ninth, the Yankees were swept -- and in a world of trouble.

They've lost five of their past seven games and stand 8½ games behind Tampa Bay in the AL East, as far back as they've been since July 7.

"You can sit and try and analyze it ... but the bottom line is, we need to win games," shortstop Derek Jeter said.

"We're starting to put ourselves in a bad situation," pitcher Andy Pettitte said. "We've got to figure out a way to win, that's all there is to it."

"Every game is a playoff game from now on," vowed third baseman Alex Rodriguez. "We've dug ourselves a huge hole."

The Yanks are bewildered, clutch hitless and snakebit.

"About a 10-hopper through the infield," was the way manager Joe Girardi described Figgins' hopper that leaked into shallow right field between Betemit (who, inexplicably, opted to jog over to the first-base bag instead of go after the ball) and second baseman Robinson Cano, who was shaded toward the second-base bag.

"A 75-hopper off of Mariano (Rivera) to win the game," A-Rod said.

However you score the bouncing ball, the Yanks are taking on water and time is running out, and there is a direct correlation between the disappearance of Kennedy and Hughes this summer and the Yanks being in very real danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 1993.

After 13 consecutive Octobers, tying Atlanta's major league record at 14 this season is looking exceptionally problematical, what with Tampa Bay refusing to wilt, Boston owning better overall pitching (and in Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz, better young pitching, especially) and the Yankees banged-up and pitching-thin.