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Over his last 24 games, spanning the months of June and July, Molina has hit .241/.323/.296. That's not good. It doesn't make the position any less of a loss for the Yankees. Thing is, over their last dozen games, the Yankees are hitting .224/.299/.321 with an average of 3.8 runs per game. That includes the 18-7 thrashing of the Rangers on July 2. Over those 12 games:

Maybe the correct thing to say here is that Molina's bat isn't helping, but he's not hurting the Yankees as badly as Melky Cabrera, Bobby Abreu, or, I regret to say, Brett Gardner — not that we should rate Gardner or any of these hitters on the basis of eight games. In the meantime, Joe Girardi is alienating Posada over a catcher who provides a very dubious benefit. There are a lot of "Ifs" here — if Posada hits up to his capabilities, if the at bats freed up at first base and designated hitter are taken up by a hitter who can, as Bobby Murcer used to put it, hit — then the missing caught stealing won't matter. That would require health from Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon, or a deal, or all of the above.

The more interesting issue here is that Posada is signed through 2011. His throwing has varied over the years, but he's never had a Molina-type arm and never will. Perhaps he'll recover from this year's injuries, but he's never going to have a 50 percent kill rating. He's only going to get worse. No doubt that this was a problem the Yankees knew they would have to confront eventually but didn't expect to deal with this season. Between Posada's injuries and Girardi's preference for Molina behind the plate, they've run into a situation that could trouble them not just for the rest of the year, but for the rest of Posada's career.

AS FOR THURSDAY
Not much to say about the game except that relievers blow games sometimes, especially when the offense stays home in a vestigial tail of an interleague game. Once again, these are not normal times for the Yankees. Otherwise, it would be worth noting that Girardi's platoon arrangements still aren't paying off. Platooning only makes sense if you have hitters who need to be platooned, or the hitters who you're platooning with give you a much larger advantage when they do play. Yankees right-handed hitters are batting .233/.316/.353 against southpaws, so it clearly hasn't worked. Girardi needs to stick with the lefties against all comers or find a new platoon bat— Richie Sexson? That could work if the Yankees would clear third catcher/tranquility coach Chad Moeller off the roster.

THE AROUND (AND ABOUT)
• Who had Hanley Ramirez hitting 40 home runs in the office pool? Ramirez is more than halfway there. Only one Marlin has hit more than 34 home runs in a season-our old pal Gary Sheffield in 1996.

• Can't stop listening to the Baseball Project CD. There will be a song-by-song review in this space next week. Favorite song so far: "Ted [Expletive] Williams," which is not a condemnation, but a piece of biodrama written from Teddy Ballgame's POV. • Nice, economical game in KC on Thursday, with Mark Buehrle, Zack Greinke , and the usual pile of relievers combining to walk just one batter. Time of game: 2:26.

• John Lackey's last two starts: 11.2 innings, 23 hits, 12 runs, two walks, 12 strikeouts, 3 home runs. And here the A's are, bailing out of the pennant race.

• You think Gardner has struggled — check out rookie Roger Bernadina with the Nats. In 10 games, he's gone 5-for-40 with no walks and no extra base hits. That's .125/.125/.125. The difference is that Gardner will get better at some point.

• R.A. Dickey throws seven shutout innings? Is that even allowed? Dickey, whose career has been star-crossed to say the least, having been born without all of his pitching parts, is a fun guy to root for. Too bad the Mariners' pen blew the game for him.

• Can I hop off the Kosuke Fukudome bandwagon as fast as I hopped on? On May 1, Fukudome went 4-for-4 to raise his averages to .353/.455/.500. In the 60 games since, he's hit .249/.355/.373. That's not a corner outfielder in this man's army. The walks are good, though, and not in the Cubs' tradition — one of the reasons they win.

• Thought inspired by the Mets' outfield: there are so few useful outfielders right now that if the Yankees were to consider trading Johnny Damon or Hideki Matsui in the offseason, they might get a better return than you might expect for mid-30s players who aren't big bashers. If they could get two players for one, it's worth considering given that the youth movement will be ongoing whether they like it or not.

• Last note for today: about two weeks back I complained about the Brewers batting J.J. Hardy in the second spot. Since then, Hardy has hit about .450 and slugged .900, with eight home runs in 72 at bats. J.J., I'm sorry. Keep up the good work. I'll pick on Bill Hall next time.

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THURSDAY, July 10: Posted at 4:01 p.m. EST

ONE REASON TO LIKE JOE GIRARDI
Besides his fine singing voice, I mean. So far this season, Mariano Rivera has pitched in eight tie games. Last season he pitched in all of nine. He pitched in nine in 2006. He pitched in seven in 2005, six in 2004. You get the picture — Girardi is handling this aspect of Rivera's usage a little differently than Joe Torre did.

Baseball Prospectus has a statistic called "leverage," which measures the situations in which a reliever gets used (here's the official definition). The higher the score above 1.00, which is equal to the start of the game, the more the pitcher has been used at crucial points in the game. Here are the current leaders in that category, 25 or more innings pitched:

Not all closers are used equally. The more traditionally a closer is used, or more accurately, the more a closer is used to get textbook soft saves — entering with leads of two or three runs with no one on in the ninth inning — the lower this score will be. Here's Rivera as closer, season by season. The second column is his leverage score, the third his major league rank, along with the major league leader.

A closer's value changes depending on the circumstances when the manager calls for him. Now, keep in mind, this statistical picture is a generalization — there were some years, particularly 1998, where the Yankees were so good that perhaps Joe Torre had fewer opportunities to use Rivera in high-leverage situations. Yet, that was not the situation every year, and it is certain that Rivera could have pitched in many more important situations than he actually did.

SMALL THING I AM HAPPY ABOUT TODAY
While downloading The Baseball Project CD from Yep Roc Records, I stopped off and picked up a Nick Lowe-inspired, "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding" T-shirt, and on sale, too! Who could ask for anything more? Well, maybe you could ask for actual peace, love, and understanding rather than just a T-shirt, but let's keep it real here.

THE AROUND (AND ABOUT)
• The Tigers recalled first baseman Jeff Larish from Triple-A, my candidate for this year's "Most Likely to Have a Mickey Tettleton Career" award. Don't suppose he'll play this tour either, unless he's being spotlighted for some kind of trade.

• Happened to hear Meatloaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights" today and felt sad about Phil Rizzuto. That's new. One of the best novelty songs to be a big hit. Did Dr. Demento ever pick up on that?

• John Van Benschoten of the Pirates got torched again yesterday. With a 2-12 record and 8.96 career ERA in 83.1 major league innings, he's not going to get too many more chances. He's already one of the bigger first-round busts in history. I would say he's the worst pitcher I've ever seen, but I saw all 33 starts Jeff Johnson made for the Yankees. Anyway, Pirates, it's time to stop cheating your fan base and move on.

• The Phillies had better make the most of this season, because this year's wonderful bullpen will be next year's crushing disappointment. This is just the way the universe works.

• After an indifferent start, outfielder Adam Jones of the O's, key to the Erik Bedard deal, has hit in 11 of 12 games, going 20-for-48 (.417) with two doubles, two triples, and a home run. Walks remain something of an afterthought.

• Whenever Mariano Rivera hangs up his cleats, and let's hope it's about 50 years from now, K-Rod, Francisco Rodriguez of the Angels, is going to lay claim to the unofficial title of "Awesome-est Closer that Walks the Earth," albeit without all the cool postseason extras. That's why when he allows a walk-off homer, as he did Wednesday night to , it's a mighty shock. This ain't Joe Borowski we're talking about.

• Next time dad gives me the keys to the time travel machine, I'm going back to the 60s to arrange a rock-off between the Beatles and the Rascals on covers of Larry Williams' "Slow Down." I'm not certain the Beatles would win that, as the Rascals stomped the song so hard it never walked again... Maybe "People Got to Be Free" came closer to the point than "All You Need is Love," too. Is that blasphemy? I'm sorry, John, wherever you are. It's still a classic.

• Why general managers have a rough job: say Joe Mauer were available in trade or as a free agent. He's only 25, so he seems safe, but in the wrong park, or in the wrong year, he's just some bad luck or a slump away from being Jason Kendall. In fact, given the way catchers age, Kendall is almost certainly closer than he appears in the rear-view mirror. Yet, the guy can really hit... right now. If you've drafted him and you have him, like the Twins do, great. The gods have smiled on you. If you have to spend resources to acquire him, measuring the risk is a different matter.

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MONDAY, July 7: Posted at 9:47 a.m. EST

IMPORTANT A-ROD MARRIAGE UPDATE
Just kidding. Until it affects his hitting, fielding, or availability to play, it remains none of our business.

IT'S TOO EASY TO SAY THAT THEY DON'T CARE
Throughout the season, as the Yankees have failed to take control of the pennant race — and splitting with Boston surely counts as failing to take control — too many pundits, and perhaps manager Joe Girardi as well, have wanted to blame some lack of emotional commitment on the part of the players. Even Girardi's postgame meeting Thursday night seems an extension of that, an effort to berate the players into winning.

Good luck with that. It's not that the players don't care. Heck, maybe they don't care. It doesn't matter. The shortcomings of the 2008 Yankees are a matter of injuries, declining veterans, and subpar seasons. As Billy Martin said, you have your mules and you have your racehorses, and no matter how much you beat the mules you won't turn them into racehorses. This Yankees edition is a solid mule, and Girardi can hold meetings on a nightly basis if he wants, but it won't change that fact.

Given the number of runs scored and allowed by the Yankees this year, the team's record is about what we would expect it to be. To say that it should have allowed fewer runs, or scored more, is to say that they should be better than they are because that's what we think or want. It's wishful thinking, with no relationship to what actually is. The offense is just good, not great. The pitching staff is threatening to evolve into something pretty interesting, especially given the improvement in the bullpen, which has 6-4 with an ERA of 3.39 since the end of May. The Yankees remain a bat and a starting pitcher short of making a real run, and that is a conservative estimate given the manager's continued predilection for playing Jose Molina, the unending slump of Melky Cabrera, a Bobby Abreu cold streak that has been ongoing for just over three weeks, Johnny Damon's injury, and the season in which Derek Jeter rendered all discussion of moving him to another position moot — as of this moment, at least, there's no other position that his bat can carry.

This week the Yankees will get another chance to prove this estimation overly pessimistic. Not only will they face the first place Rays and get a chance to make a dent in their 10-game loss column lead, but the Red Sox will simultaneously host the Twins, thus pitting two of the three teams ahead of the Yankees in the Wild Card race against each other. The Twins are inept on the road, the Sox unbeatable at home, and the Rays are unlikely to fold, but should the Yankees take two of three games while the Red Sox are losing two of three, they would cut their wild card deficit to two games in the loss column.

That said, the Yankees will also have to consider what to do if the opposite is the case, and they drop two of three while Boston wins the same number from the Twins. The trading deadline is coming. Buyers, sellers? Buyers, sellers? "Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?"

MOLINA'S ARM AND HAMMER
You can puzzle out the value of these things if you want: having thrown out 24 runners in 49 attempts, Molina is having one of the best throwing seasons by a Yankees catcher in recent memory, maybe since Thurman Munson's youth. Munson's career caught stealing rate was 44 percent, and in three seasons he caught more than half of all runners trying to steal on him (note: wow). Rick Cerone did it in 1980 as well — it helps when the rotation has three lefty starters.

Over the last few years, the average catcher has nailed somewhere around 25 percent of baserunners, sometimes slightly more. A catcher having a more typical season than Molina's would throw out only 12 of those 49 baserunners. Advantage Molina, by 12 runners.

Molina has also had 169 plate appearances, and he's reached base 25.6 percent of the time. The average American League on-base percentage is .333. The average AL catcher has an OBP of .329. In other words, Molina has been on base 43 times, but if he were hitting like the average catcher, he would have been on base perhaps 56 times, or 13 more times Advantage fictional catcher, who is bringing one more appearance on base to the party than Molina is bringing dead runners.

Jorge Posada has thrown out less than 20 percent of his runners. Let's assume that 20 percent represents his true level of ability over the rest of the season. He would have thrown out only 10 of the 49 runners. He also happens to be ice-cold at the plate, but let's argue that his current .360 OBP represents what he would have done. He would have been on base 18 more times than Molina in the same amount of playing time, to say nothing of any additional extra-base hits he might have had — we've totally left slugging out of this discussion.

You can play with the numbers any way you like and maybe you'll come up with a different answer — after all, math is far from my specialty. For me it's like sharing my hot tub with a live shark or a dead tree sloth — but I can't see any reason that Molina should be catching at any time that Posada is available to catch.

THE AROUND (AND ABOUT)
• Awhile back I was agitating for Mike Scioscia to bat Casey Kotchman higher in the batting order. It took forever, but lately Kotchman has been appearing in the No. 2 slot. What's weirder is that this has also meant that the punchless Maicer Izturis has moved up to No. 3.

• The Astros DFA'd Reggie Abercrombie. Career rates: .208/.263/.335. Nothing deep to add; I had marveled in a previous visit to this space that he was in the majors at all, so I wanted to follow up.

• The Phillies signed Brad Lidge to a three-year extension lasting through 2011 with a club option for 2012. The Phillies have had constant turnover at closer since Jose Mesa held the position for consecutive seasons in 2002-2003, so this gives them a bit of stability there. They made the mistake of giving Tom Gordon a three-year deal at age 38 (it will cost them $1 million to buy out the fourth year), but at 31, Lidge is in a safer zone, to the extent that any pitcher is safe from injury.

• Ex-Yankees product Cristian Guzman gets the All-Star nod for the Nats because someone has to, but the team's most valuable player has been closer Jon Rauch. Meanwhile, Elijah Dukes, who was the only Nat hitting — he had batted .314/.403/.545 with six home runs over his last 30 games, is out for at least a month, probably more, with a shredded right knee. Lastings Milledge is already on the DL, so the starting outfield is now Wily Mo Pena (.218/.254/.280), Roger Bernadina (.167/.167/.167 in seven games, .323/.398/.474 with speed at Double-A but likely not that good), and the once-useful Austin Kearns (.194/.300/.267) ... The second-most valuable Nat after Rauch is probably starter John Lannan, but rookie starters with 4-9 records don't usually get to go to the All-Star game.

• Nice job by the Braves' pen on Sunday, pitching 11 scoreless innings to win the game in 17 frames ... It's neat when you see a game that went on for so long that a player who entered as a pinch-hitter got in five at bats.

• Quote of the week: Milton Bradley after manager Ron Washington informed him of his selection to the All-Star team, and then embraced him: "For 30 years, I always imagined what a father-son moment would be like. That was it. That meant a lot coming from Wash."