Selected quotes from the Yankees pitching staff and Torre:

Kevin Brown:
"Some days you don't have the pitches," said Kevin Brown, who gave up five runs, eight hits, walked two and drilled two more in 51/3 innings. "Today I was limited to what I could and could not do."

Joe Torre on Mike Mussina:
"We got the lead, and Moose pitched very effectively early. Then he just fell apart," Torre said, a terse postscript to another numbing evening of Yankees ball. "There's not much you can say, other than he didn't make his pitches."

Carl Pavano:
"I don't know if frustrated is the word," Pavano said. "The [Yankees] definitely needed a solid outing from me to win this game and avoid a sweep and I didn't pitch well at all. My job was to go out there and help the team and I didn't.

Mike Mussina:
"All of the things that made the last month good, all the weapons I had -- the ability to throw breaking balls for strikes, to throw the fastball in and out -- I didn't have any of that today," Mussina said. "It's tough to pitch against any lineup -- let alone theirs -- without any weapons. I didn't have any today."

We live and die by our pitching. Honestly, there were two games where our bats lost the game for us. The Kevin Brown and Unit losses to KC - those were two games that were well pitched and both pitchers kept us in the game.

As I've said before, I'm a firm believer in that it is the players job to get the job done. Not the coaches. They are the talent that the Boss pays, and sometimes overpays, to pitch for the Yankees under the big lights of NY. That being said, I'm also a believer that it takes more than clicking your "pitch-count-thingy" and walking out to the mound for a discussion with the pitcher after he has already given up several runs and putting the Yankees in a bigger hole. Sheesh, somebody wake up our pitching coach!!

And lastly, ever notice that since Quantrill tagged that Detroit player he has, as Wade Boggs used to put it, "stunk up the joint"??

Rant over. I feel better.