When you lose perhaps the game’s greatest player, and a superstar slugging catcher—then have a flat phenom hitting .150 and deadwood at firstbase hitting about the same, we’re talking 44% of our lineup and probably 70% of our productive lineup.

With all of that going on we are still hovering around .500 baseball. I’m frankly, thrilled.

Yes, we did look flat and tired last night. But running into a pitcher who is on his game tends to do that to a team.

Aside from cutting Giambi right now, I’m not for tinkering with an already taped together lineup. Give guys time to heal and gel, and pray that Cano starts to hit.

I too am not panicked. However, instead of praying that Cano starts to hit – or Duncan or Giambi or insert name here – I am praying that our hitting coach starts to earn his paycheck. Last year, when Robbie was struggling he was put through a series of drills where he would stand in the batters box and not take a single swing. This went a long way toward improving his pitch recognition. The results spoke for themselves. Does anyone have any insight on what Long is doing with our slumping hitters this year?

I agree that A-rod and Jorge are soreley missed. But even when they were in the lineup, our RISP numbers have been abysmal. If Cano and Giambi keep trying to pull the ball over the short porch looking for the 3 run jack, opposing pitchers will keep throwing the outside breaking balls at them knowing they are going to (frustratingly and repeatedly) hit weak groundouts to second base. Will Long ever start preaching to these guys to hit that pitch into left field? I can’t be the only one who sees this. 3 run homers are great, but at this point I’ll gladly settle for a run scoring single to the opposite side.