Struggling teams beating up on the Yanks

When the Yankees left Colorado, they were extolling the virtues of a team that had just swept them. Supposedly, the Rockies, according to many Yanks, looked like a playoff team.

Well, so much for that. Since watching the Yankees leave town, the Rockies have gone 1-9, and they’ve looked utterly terrible. Meanwhile, the Yanks have continued to lose, and they do so against teams that have been playing just as well — or as badly — as the Rockies. The Yanks have become, in other words, slumpbusters for the rest of the league.

Take a look:

San Francisco Giants: When the Yanks came to town, the Giants had lost seven in a row. While the Yanks sent the Giants to their eighth straight defeat, the Giants managed to take the next two from the Yanks. San Francisco has gone a pedestrian 3-3 since the Yanks left town.

Baltimore Orioles: Before facing the Yanks, the Orioles had gone 3-11 in a 14-game stretch that witness the end of the managerial reign of Sam Perlozzo. So with the Yanks in town, of course, the Orioles take two games from them with the third suspended due to rain. The Orioles then lost two out of three to the Angels this weekend.

Oakland Athletics: Coming into New York, the A’s had gone 4-9 over their previous 13 games. Their offense had been struggling, and their pitchers — including Chad Gaudin (0-2, 6.35 ERA over 17 IP in his last 3 starts) — were struggling. Well, the Yanks managed two first-inning runs on Friday to hang on for a 2-1 win. They got one-hit by Gaudin on Saturday and outslugged by the A’s on Sunday.

Now, the Yanks face a team actually playing good baseball. After losing a 1-0 heartbreaker on Sunday night, the Twins are 6-3 over their last nine games. With the Yanks showing no signs of anything, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that we’re in for a long series this week.

The Twins, ahead of the Yanks in the Wild Card race, are settling in for a nice long four-game series at Yankee Stadium. If the Yanks fail to step up now, they’ll be facing a huge deficit in the Wild Card race come Friday morning. So can the Yanks buck their recent trends and beat the good team after losing to the struggling clubs? For the sake of 2007, I sure hope so. Maybe the Twins will be the Yanks’ slumpbusters this week.