Afternoon Baseball

Well, it appears as if last week's optimism about the creaky left-hander has given way to the much more likely reality that Al Leiter is done for. At least he went 6 innings tonight.

Of bigger concern is Derek Jeter's 4-35 slump. Have we seen the best of this guy? Not that a diminshed Jeter is a bad player at all -- I just think we may never see another .330 year from him. Although if you take Jeter's numbers from May 26, 2004, when he began to break out of that awful slump, through yesterday, even with the recent slump, he's at a .317/.385/.498 with 166 runs in 202 games. Right near or even above his career numbers. It's these prolonged slumps that are killing him.