'Boy, that escalated quickly.'

I have to admit, I didn't see the Yankees' hot hand going cold in such an instantaneous manner this weekend. It's not the end of the world ... the biggest regret here is that New York blew back-to-back chances to pick up ground on Boston but whatever, it's June. Salvage the finale on Sunday and dismiss the losses quicker than tepid Mike Myers retread.

Dan "Don't Call Me Don" Giese made his first career start today, and he deserved a far better fate. The prototypical "crafty" right-hander, Giese cruised through six innings before, for the second straight game, a Yankees starter was unable to escape two-out trouble in a tight game. On Friday, Mike Mussina got burned by the only-stoppable-by-the-second-base-bag Jolbert Cabrera after Joe Girardi had Jay Bruce intentionally walked. This strategy did not make Stanford's shining light happy.

Today, Giese had a chance to exit the seventh inning unscathed with two outs and runners on second and third, but instead he allowed a clean two-run single to left by Edwin Encarnacion for the first runs of the game. Jose Veras entered and promptly allowed an upper tank job to Corey Patterson and that was that. I mean, when you're facing a superstar ace the likes of Daryl Thompson, you have to be as stingy as possible, you know?

For those keeping score at home, the Yankees are now 0-1 in games in Chien-Ming Wang's rotation slot. I stated on Monday that the Yankees will need to go at least 7-7 in this position to keep them above water as their ace attempts to make it back by Sept. 1. I also stated in that post that the offense will need to help pick up the slack for their missing ace during this time. Obviously, they are not readers of my Web log. Not cool.

As far as the Moose-Girardi Passions episode on Friday night, I can see both sides of the debate. Mussina is a respected veteran having a fine season, and it makes sense that he'd want to decide whether or not to go after a rookie -- highly touted or not -- in a big spot. Girardi, on the other hand, is a young manager who got burned in a similar situation in April when Moose went after Manny Ramirez with unsatisfactory results. If he has 20 years under his belt I don't see him making the decision for his pitcher. But this seemed to be a situation where a stubborn veteran clashed with a newbie manager. I'm sure it happens.

In the end, Mussina probably just should have gotten Cabrera out. That's what I would have done if I was him.

Around The Horn: When Veras allowed Patterson's back-breaking homer Saturday, it marked the first outing he had allowed a run since June 3. That spanned seven appearances. ... Robbie Cano went 0-f0r-4 with six LOB on Saturday. He has showed signs of exiting the fog of late (sound familiar?), but facts are facts. It's June 21 and he's batting .229. What the hell happened here? ... The fact that Reds manager Dusty Baker struts to the pitcher's mound with a toothpick in his mouth is pretty awesome all things considered. Kind of makes you wonder if he's ever toothpick-less in his life. Too many ... bad jokes ... cannot compute. ...There was a David Weathers sighting in the Bronx today, which led to my realization that Weathers has been in the league for parts of 17 (17!!??!) seasons and is thus likely a millionaire several times over. River & Sunset would like to congratulate David Weathers for making a pretty good life for himself. P.S. Thanks for '96. ... Vote the deserving Yankees into the All-Star Game being held in the Boogie Down. Seriously, do it. If I have to look at Kevin Youkilis' vagina beard on July 15, I may just lose it.