"This is as disinterested a September as a top-shelf Yankee team has had in a long time. They are now tied for first with the Rays, who have spent $140 million less on baseball players than the Yankees have this season, not that we're ever supposed to worry about accounting like that around here.

It gets better.

The Rays' payroll is $72 million and change. David Price, Evan Longoria, Carlos Pena, the whole team bus. The payroll for the Yankee starting rotation, the original one, the one with the immortal Javy Vazquez in it?

That payroll is right around $65 million.

Just for the starting pitchers. If you want a little more context, that is about what Cincinnati spent this year on all the baseball players who finally put the Reds back in the postseason.

Only now, on the verge of another Yankee postseason, it feels as if the only reliable postseason rotation the Yankees have is CC Sabathia.

The Yankees aren't so sure about Big-Game Andy Pettitte because of his stiff back. They are clearly scared to death of A.J. Burnett, a pitcher on whom they lavished an $82 million contract not so long ago and who now looks no better than Vazquez. Their second-best starter is Phil Hughes, a big talent, but one who has never started a postseason game in his life.

This is supposed to be a time in New York when Yankee fans are supposed to be deciding whether their team is better off facing the Twins or the Rangers. This after about a month when Joe Girardi has managed as if he wants to be the wild card, wants to face the Twins, as if the Yankees can take the Twins in the first round the way they always have."