The Yankees get two days off after the All-Star game to regroup and return to the winning side of things. They should have no problem doing so with 10 consecutive games at home against mostly bottom tier teams (Detroit the exception, Baltimore and Oakland). These are games they will indubitably need to win considering what they face after their gentler home stand. After 10 games at home they’ll be hitting the road to face the Rays who, despite a weak first quarter of the season, have come on strong lately and have a Mr. Longoria, and a Mr. Crawford on their team. These are the defending AL champs and as the season approaches its end, I think we’ll see them looking more and more like it. The Yankees will then finish up in Chicago to conclude a 17-day stretch of 17 games. It doesn’t get any easier from there as the Yankees take a short two day trip to Toronto before being welcomed home by the Red Sox for a 4 game series—the first of two meetings with the Red Sox in August.

In case I haven’t been clear, the Yankees have a tough second half of the schedule without many days off to rest. They are playing a lot of games within the division and still have many games against teams with winning records (of the remaining 74 games, the Yankees will play 44 games against teams that have winning records as of today) including 3 series’ against the Sox. People all around the baseball world, including people who have written to me and on this blog, are commenting on how poorly the Yankees do versus top tier teams. And at this point of the season there really isn’t any disputing that. The Yankees seem to play scared, or perhaps dumb is the better word, when playing tough opponents this season. If they expect to make it to the playoff and do something when they’re there, they are going to have to beat tough opponents…often. It’s something I believe they can and will do but there are some things they need to change if they want to succeed come the end of the regular season and beyond.

I’ll start with the obvious: pitching. Our two big money pitchers have played well but not up to expectations. AJ Burnett has looked very good recently but he’s going to have to keep the power on all season in order to really help the Yankees. Although he leads the team in strikeouts he also leads the team in walks. This is a great example of Burnett’s performance this season, for everything he does well he usually matches it with something poor. Great performances in June and early July (maybe the best on the team in during that stretch) were in response to a 6 week streak in April and May without a win. Hopefully he just keeps climbing up the win ladder and continues moving forward.

CC has been good but not great. I love reading New York City sports sections (7/15/09 Daily News Morning edition) that think his 3.86 ERA is worth all the money we paid for him. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate what he’s done. He has been a workhorse and like I said, he has pitched well but I ‘d still like to see a little more domination. I have a lot of faith that the best of CC is yet to come and that the man will strive during the dog days and the big games leading up to the playoffs.

The bullpen needs work and if the Yankees make any moves before the July 31st trade deadline I’d hope it’d be for some bullpen support and not for anymore Eric Hinske’s. Phil Hughes has been moved around all season and has taken it like a champ, performing very well out of the pen. Now if only all the other guys could take the lead and play well. Our only shining star in the cloudy bullpen (besides MO but he has his own section) is Aceves. The key for him is to stay healthy, we’re going to need him a lot this season and we’re going to need him to be able to toss each time he’s called on. The rest of the bullpen either has to get healthy or get pitching. Most of them have been flops and all of them need to turn it around.

MO…like a cucumber.

On the hitting side they just need to start knocking in runners. They can’t keep stranding runners in scoring position; championship teams just don’t strand runners. This goes especially for Cano and A-Rod (We’ll get to the lover boy soon). Cano is a great hitter whose career has been full of question marks. Like why did he suck last year? He has been hitting well this season (.308BA and 13HR) but refuses to hit when runners are ready to score. He can be a powerful hitter in the Yankees line-up and is going to have to stop hitting .211 with runners in scoring position.

A-Rod has to just play baseball and stop thinking. He can be the difference between winning the division and losing the wild card spot. He has the ability to put games away as well as to frustrate fans and stimulate local sports writers who seem to get off by dogging him. He has obviously had a big affect on the team who plays loads better with him than without him. Alex’s average has jumped dozens of points in the last two weeks and his power numbers would even be decent for a 4-hitter who didn’t miss the first two months of the season. The Yankees just have to hope that all this doubt as to if he is one of the top players in the league triggers the inner beast, and gets him to forget about Kate Hudson, stop thinking about himself and start playing like the player he STILL is.

None of these things are insurmountable. The Yankees can be the best team in baseball. Hell, they’re the third best in baseball with all these problems. Luckily for them they beat the teams they should have nearly every time so that their losses to good teams haven’t hurt them all that much. But that won’t last long. Soon they’re going to need to beat those better teams and by soon I mean starting Friday against first place Detroit (48-39).