Carl Pavano will likely miss the rest of the season (best case scenario is that he's back in time for the last 2-3 weeks of the season). Randy Johnson will be out until probably the 18th, 19th, 20th, instead of the 16th. Wang could be throwing off a mound as early as next week. Jaret Wright will start Monday (his first appearance since April 23).

So, where does this leave us?

Well, right now our rotation is something like Randy, Moose, Chacon, Small, Leiter. The best thing that could happen is for Wright to come in on Monday and pitch well. That would bump Leiter out of the rotation. For me, it's either him or Leiter in the rotation. Chacon and Small deserve to hold their spots. They have both pitched consistently well - so we can only hope that they continue down that road. This gives us a rotation of Randy, Moose, Chacon, Small, Wright/Leiter.

Then, let's say Wang gets back in August (late August - is that possible if he starts throwing next week? I have no idea (edit: guess not). Wang will simply bump the weakest performer out of Chacon, Small and Wright/Leiter. Something tells me Chacon won't be the weakest and it'll be Small or Wright/Leiter.

If we can pick up 2-3 games in the standings by that time, we'll be in good shape. That said, our pitching has been very good this week as we've allowed 2 runs in each game - bringing us to 8 total runs allowed over 4 games. Unfortunately, we've only been able to score 2.75 runs per game (1.66 if you throw out the 6-2 win to start the week). We've got to score more runs than that. No pitching is that good. If we allow just 2 runs in a game, we have to win that game.

(Update (thanks to reader Athos): According to the New York Daily News, Wright will bump Small out of the rotation with Leiter remaining.)