Jason Giambi has hit 22 of his 32 home runs since the All-Star break. AP
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For $200 million and some change, we expected more than this. We expected 110 wins or so. We were counting on a shut-down pitching staff, the game's best set of lumber-swingers since '27 and a 15-game runaway in the American League East. Minimum.

And this is what we get? A rotation filled with achy geezers and whatshisnames plucked off the street? A rookie at second base? Tony Womack, for crying out loud?

A final weekend showdown in Boston just to make it into the postseason?

Who's responsible for this bait and switch?

From the start of the season, the '05 Yankees have looked a little off. George Steinbrenner and Joe Torre and Brian Cashman went after pitching last winter -- clearly the team's downfall in a disastrous, forgettable, really un-Yankeelike '04 postseason collapse -- and ended up with the game's premiere left-handed ace, Randy Johnson. They also coughed up big money for a newly revived one-time phenom (Jaret Wright) and a free-agent right-hander (Carl Pavano) with promise but a losing career record.

By the early part of June, Johnson was 5-5 and already had missed a start, a lame Wright had limped his way to all of four starts and Pavano was ready to join his fellow free-agent buddy on the disabled list. Achy Kevin Brown was 4-6 and looking about 65 years old. Even the staff's so-called ace, Mike Mussina, was hovering around .500 with an ERA on the wrong side of 4.00.

Worse than that, first baseman and designated hitter Jason Giambi was looking like Brown's grandpa and hitting around .230, Womack was stinking up the joint from infield to outfield and the Yankees, for the pinstriped lives of them, couldn't win a game unless they scored more than three runs. They started 0-27 in games in which they scored three or fewer runs.

Not at all coincidentally, the Yankees were still below .500 back in early June, in fourth place in the AL East, seven games behind the Orioles.

After that shaky break out of the gates, expectations predictably plummeted. The team was blasted as the biggest bust in baseball history. Giambi was nicely asked to take a hike, to the minors, which he refused to do. Cashman, the team's general manager, was closer than ever to getting fired -- and this is a guy who sits every day on the game's hottest hot seat.