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As much as the dissipating intensity of the Boston sweep was expected to leave the Yankees enervated, it wasn't the Mariners but the schedule that killed the Yankees on Tuesday. The Yankees stranded a lot of runners, but it was Joe Torre's need to rest some key components of the bullpen that lost the game. Had Scott Proctor been available, Jaret Wright might never have seen action, and Ron Villone was pushed past his recommended stress limits — as good as he has been this season, he's still Ron Villone, a pitcher with a 4.63 career earned run average.

In fact, the Mariners are the perfect soft target for your post-massacre breakfast. With the second lowest runs-scored total in the league, they can't hit. The Mariners have few players who get on base with regularity; their team on-base percentage is .319, far below the league average of .340. Their entire team is as productive as their second baseman, Jose Lopez.

The Mariners also don't pitch very well. The league average is 4.59. Going into Tuesday's game, the M's team ERA was 4.51. That includes 160 innings of Jamie Moyer's 4.39 ERA, since decamped to Philadelphia. In their home park, their team ERA was 4.31. On the road it's 4.72, revealing that the staff is slightly worse than advertised. Their manager is also the tactical naïf that many local pundits have made him out to be. Mike Hargrove's bullpen management on Tuesday defied explanation. There's a great George Steinbrenner quote — said to Jim Beattie way back — that accurately describes Hargrove's pitcher handling. Unfortunately, it can't be printed here as it involves a primate doing something unnatural to a football. It worked last night but you can see why it wouldn't work most of the time, or why M's fans have been taking up a collection to send the Human Rain Delay on a long vacation.

Bullpen management is not Joe Torre's strong suit either, but at least he can defend his moves, however parlous they were, or are. Normally you might fault him for keeping Villone in against the right-handed Adrián Beltré, even if Beltré hadn't done much with southpaws this year. The same is also true of the batter who would have followed, Richie Sexson — the righty slugger is batting .178/.285/.402 against lefties, just the kind of "weakness" that can be depended on to vanish at the worst possible time for the opposition. A key factor in the handling of the bullpen over the rest of the season will be if Torre learns to trust Octavio Dotel, and if Dotel inspires that trust.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...
Craig Wilson seems to have lost his job to Bernie Williams. Joe Torre just can't stay away from his old favorite. If Williams could be bottled, Torre would give up his green tea. Wilson's sin was to struggle in his first 58 Yankees at-bats, hitting .241/.267/.397. That's not good, but it's still a pretty quick hook for an established player with a track record of hitting for power.

At this late point of the season, Williams' splits are still extreme — .263/.297/.401 against righties, .310/.380/.478 against lefties. Whenever the Yankees use Williams as a designated hitter against a right-hander, they're conceding the spot. Even the worst team is going to field a more productive hitter. Williams is still an asset in limited doses when used correctly. This is using him incorrectly.

At least Williams is being restricted to the DH position. As we saw in Boston, his outfield defense has traversed the border between "bad" and "unsustainable."

THEO AND INCAPABILITY
One thing that's being missed in the rush to pillory the Red Sox for their failure to spend prospects on second-line pitching at the trading deadline is that second-line pitching alone wasn't going to save their season. With every starter after Curt Schilling either injured or ineffective, with the entire bullpen after Papelbon wrecked, the Sox needed to acquire two aces: one starting, one relieving. If both weren't out there, one probably wouldn't have saved the season. Given the quality of what was available at the deadline, the utility of making a trade at high cost was doubtful.

The real Sox misjudgments came earlier, but it may be unfair to call them misjudgments. Johnny Damon is having a very nice season for the Yankees, perhaps the best of his career. But he's 32 and the length of his contract is a concern; it's very likely he won't be a useful center fielder by 2008, let alone 2009. The same concerns helped make it easy for the Sox to let Pedro Martínez leave two years ago. Not only would those players have weighed down the payroll in future seasons, but they would have weighed down the roster itself.

The fixes that the Sox tried didn't work out, but it's hard to argue with them given what was known at the time. If the top pitching free agents of 2004 were Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright, and Matt Clement, it's hard to argue that the Red Sox chose poorly. Coco Crisp is not Damon but he shouldn't have to be — the Sox have a fine leadoff hitter in Kevin Youkilis. That leaves Crisp to provide above-average offense in center, something he should be able to do in future injury-free seasons. Defense is another matter; Crisp's best defensive position is left field. Trusting the aged David Wells was a Hail Mary pass that didn't pay off. Josh Beckett was certain to take a step backwards going from the Lite Baseball League to the American League, but the degree to which he would fail to adjust could not have been anticipated.

If you want to make an argument about misjudgments, one could assert that as good as Jon Papelbon has been — and through the first half he was a borderline MVP candidate — the Sox might have needed Papelbon the starter even more. There is a balancing point between 200 competent innings and 80 extraordinary ones. Trading Bronson Arroyo for Wily Mo Peña also proved to be a short-term misjudgment. At the time, it seemed that the Sox had pitching depth. This rapidly proved to be an incorrect assumption.

The Yankees humiliated the Red Sox. They had pressed a bad hand for as long as they could. The team was compromised early. The Yankees had problems in the outfield and the back end of the rotation that were more susceptible to treatment. Boston's failure was systemic. Their plan for the season wasn't a bad one, but it didn't work out. It was an honorable failure, not a case of incompetence.

DOES THE SWEEP MAKE UP FOR THE 2004 ALCS?
The two have nothing to do with each other. It may, perhaps, assuage the pain for those who remember it, but that loss was historic. It will always be part of the record regardless of what comes after.

MELKY/MATSUI/ MARKAKIS
With Hideki Matsui cleared to hit off of a tee, there now is a good chance that the Yankees could get the dented left fielder back just before the end of the season. Assuming for argument's sake that the Melky Cabrera the Yankees are getting now is what the Yankees will get for the rest of the season, the team isn't suffering too badly as things are. Since the All-Star break, Cabrera has batted .303/.365/.465. Matsui is a career .295/.369/.482 hitter. The edge goes to Matsui, but throw in Cabrera's vastly superior defense and the gap narrows considerably. Another key factor in Cabrera's favor is that he's healthy; wrist injuries often linger and hitters often slump when returning from them, even if they have been medically cleared to play.

Cabrera went 0-for-4 on Tuesday, while the Orioles' Nick Markakis blasted three home runs off of the Twins' "I'm always around the plate so you don't have to guess" pitcher Carlos Silva to take the lead in our informal "Melky and Markakis are secretly the same guy so Melky could turn out to be just as good" debate. Markakis is now batting .306/.369/.466 overall, and a crazy .378/.435/.689 since the break.

THE GREENING OF SHEA STADIUM

The Mets aren't likely to see much of a boost here. Green's youth has been spent. The Mets gave up minor league pitcher, lefty Evan MacLane, a 24-year-old control artist, for the past-expiration outfielder. The real freight here is Green's contract. He's signed through next year. Even if the Diamondbacks pick up a good deal of his salary, the Mets will still have to accommodate Green's poor production.

Tuesday was a big day in a big season for the Mets. They acquired Green, they found out that Tom Glavine's arm won't keep him out for more than a week to 10 days, and Carlos Beltrán, very possibly the National League MVP, hit a walk-off home run to take a game in which they had spotted the Cardinals a 7-1 lead and trailed 7-6 with one out in the bottom of the ninth.

STATS/SMALL SAMPLES/FAILED LOGIC IN COLLEGE/FACIAL HAIR
The Yankees swept the Red Sox thanks to Jason Giambi's moustache. Joe Torre's Yankees have not swept the Red Sox in five games at home when Giambi did not have a moustache. Therefore…

OVER IN THE PINSTRIPED BLOG…
We've got the first Bookchat of the PB section in a while in the offing, as well as the usual baseball chat and meanderings of a distracted mind.