AL East Standings: The Yanks may have won 6 of their last 10 games—and scored 56 runs during those games—but they are still 3 games out of 1^st place in their division. Those pesky Red Sox are hanging on to their 1^st place rank with a death-grip. The Yanks will face the White Sox, Seattle, and Toronto after the break while the Red Sox battle Oakland, Kansas City and Seattle, so the Yanks better hope the White Sox are hungover from the vacation so they can gain some ground.

Cano a No-Go: Robby (right, with his in-need-of-a-trainer trainer) is still being bothered by his bum hamstring. He has been rehabbing in Tampa, and while the injury hasn’t gotten any worse it is not healing as fast as he would like. Cano is frustrated that he hasn’t been able to return to his post at 2^nd base just yet, but his trainer has reassured Torre that Cano will be just fine in time.

Damon Down: A sore oblique muscle (you may be familiar with this muscle, it is the one that feels sore your daily set of 1,000 side-bends) sidelined Damon for 4 games last week. He won’t need to spend any time on the over-populated Yankees disabled list, luckily, and should be back to centerfield throwing balls to a cutoff man 20-feet infront of him after the break.

Nick Green: With Cano on the DL, terminal minor-leaguer Green (left- that man's name is Nick Green and he appeared on page 1 of my Google image search. He is cooler than the Nick Green on the Yankees) has been splitting 2^nd base time with Miguel Cairo. He hit a homer off the Mets’ Soler last weekend, but other than that he hasn’t been much more than a forgettable D-list fill-in. He shall forever be known as “that guy that hit a home run against the Mets that one time”

Chacon is Cha-gone: His frightening 4-3, 6.71 ERA line—0-2 and 12.11 since returning from the DL in June—has finally caused him to be booted from the starting rotation. Torre has allegedly been disappointed with Chacon’s “work ethic” and bad attitude (although he hasn’t punched any walls yet), but he said that he does think that there is still potential for Chacon to help the Yankees win. He’s been shifted to the bullpen for the immediate future, and Kris Wilson has been called up from AAA Columbus to be the 5th starter. Wilson pitched for the Royals with marginal success from 2000-2003 and in his first 4.2 innings with the Yanks allowed 5 hits and 3 earned runs. The Yanks are hoping that 29-year-old Wilson can do what Small did for the Yanks in 2005, but I doubt that the genie in a bottle that temporarily transformed Small from a sub-par reliever to a 10-0 starter last year is hanging around the Yankees dugout this year.

Ron Villone AKA My Recent Hero: Ronnie is rockin' a 2.27 ERA on the year and has allowed just 6 ER in his last 17 innings of relief work. He pitched beautifully against the Mets last weekend; he pitched 2 scoreless innings after a long rain delay (right, in case you were wondering what a rain delay looks like) on June 30^th and then allowed just 1 run in 3 innings after coming in to mop up Jaret Wright’s mess in the 2^nd inning last Sunday.