More rips from Bill Madden of the New York Daily News:

The manager, Joe Girardi, must also come in for a goodly share of blame. Long after his April12 "Clueless Joe" game in Boston (in which he allowed Mike Mussina to pitch to Manny Ramirez with two on, two out and first base open in the sixth inning) had been forgotten, Girardi also had a horrible road trip to Anaheim, Texas and Minny.

In the first game of the trip against the Rangers, he brought back Damaso Marte in the ninth for a second inning of work and allowed him to stay in the game after walking the bases loaded, the result being Marlon Byrd's game-winning grand slam. You can give Girardi a pass for lifting Dan Giese after 83 pitches of one-run ball in the second game in Anaheim, as Giese had not thrown that many pitches all year. In the Sunday finale, however, Girardi again elected to let Marte - who, let's face it, is clearly a situational reliever - start the ninth inning after pitching out of the eighth. Again, Marte pitched the Yankees into a jam from which Mariano Rivera could not rescue them - but one from which he might have escaped, had the inexperienced Betemit, who had pinch-hit for Richie Sexson, not been at first base.

And then, of course, there was Girardi's infamous decision to rest Johnny Damon for the first game in Minneapolis - a game the Yankees desperately needed to win after just being swept in Anaheim - despite the fact that Damon was coming off five straight multihit games and was hitting .406 on the road trip. Afterward, Girardi testily blew off questions by maintaining rookie Justin Christian had good numbers against lefthanded pitching. Right.

In the wake of this "dog days" road trip, there have been accusations that the Yankees themselves are playing like a team that doesn't care anymore. In fact, they may just be playing uptight - a reflection of their tightly wound manager, who is the antithesis of the calming, reassuring Joe Torre they've been used to.