New York Yankees Totally Embarrassed Themselves by Getting Swept Against Red Sox

There will be no fancy intros for this story. No sugar coating it. None of it. My headline just says it all.

This weekend, the Yankees flat-out embarrassed themselves.

Going into this weekend's series against the visiting Boston Red Sox, who were coming in 17-20 and just beaten up by the Toronto Blue Jays, the Yankees needed to have a decent series to get themselves in the right direction.

And in one weekend series against Boston, they just totally went in the other direction.

Lets start with Friday night's game.

The Yankees usually hit Clay Buchholz very well. They knocked him around in April when the two teams squared off back at Fenway Park.

It wasn't until the bottom of the fifth inning where the Yankees finally got to Buchholz when Russell Martin drilled a two-run home run to tie the game at 2-2.

You would think after that home run, the Yankees would find themselves energized and back into the game.

No, instead, they waste a decent pitching outing by Bartolo Colon, Robinson Cano fails to turn a relatively easy double play which allowed the inning to continue, which leads to Joba Chamberlain allowing a home run to Kevin Youkilis and breaks the game wide open at 5-2.

That whole inning could have been avoided if Cano turns the double play, but because he doesn't get the ball out of his glove, it comes back to bite the Yankees in the rear.

Now, in the eighth, Curtis Granderson tripled to start off the inning and then scored on a wild pitch to make it 5-3. The crowd is back into it.

Alex Rodriguez walks. Robinson Cano gets hit by a pitch by Daniel Bard, then they pull off a double steal to set up second and third with one out.

But wait, Nick Swisher is up at bat. He's struggling and striking out often. A single would likely tie this game.

Swisher, yet again, strikes out. Good job Nick. Way to come through for the Yankees. Jorge Posada grounds out to end the inning. Boston and Bard escape the inning by the skin of their teeth.

In the ninth inning, Boston's closer Jonathan Papelbon is in, and he definitely can make it interesting when in there.

With two outs, Derek Jeter singled and got to second. Granderson hits an RBI single to make it 5-4. The Yankees have a pulse.

Not so fast, Mark Teixeira hits a weak pop-up to third that ends the game.

The Yankees had plenty of chances to get back in this game, tie the game and hey, even win this thing, but the Yankees fail to hit with runners in scoring position.

That takes care of Friday night's game. Here comes Saturday night's game, a nationally televised game on FOX.

Saturday night, the Yankees pulled off a magic trick for everyone. Their bats seemed to disappear from the hitters. Where did they go that night? Who knows.

All everyone knows is Josh Beckett took the ball for Boston and owned the Yankees for six innings.

Now, the Yankees had their chances, don't get me wrong here.

In the first inning, Jeter and Granderson got on. But then Teixeira struck out, A-Rod fouled out to third and Cano struck out. Beckett gets out of that.

In the third inning, Granderson and Teixeira get on with two outs, and A-Rod strikes out to let Beckett off the hook.

In the fifth inning, with now the Yankees down 2-0, Andruw Jones and Jeter get on with one out, Granderson fouls out to the catcher and Teixeira strikes out to end the inning.

That was it. Because after that, Adrian Gonzalez's three-run home run off CC Sabathia to make it 6-0 all but slammed the door on the game.

After that, the Yankees may as well of packed up and left Yankee Stadium, because they were done.

In the eighth, the Yankees got Teixieira and Cano on with two outs, but Russell Martin hits a weak grounder to short to end that potential threat.

The Yankees don't threat in the ninth, game over, the Red Sox win 6-0 and have won the series by taking the first two games.

The Yankees had chances against Beckett, but they kept failing to come up with a big hit. Seems to be a theme here.

Now, we come to the series finale, the Sunday night baseball game on ESPN, another nationally televised game.

Early on, Jon Lester looked completely off his game and Freddy Garcia looked sharp.

Mark Teixeira hits an RBI single to make it 1-0. Andruw Jones hits a solo home run to make it 2-1. Curtis Granderson hits a two-run home run to make it 4-1 in the second inning.

Hey, the Yankees bats look alive, FOR ONCE, in this series.

And then, just like that, poof. The Yankees bats just go to sleep against Lester.

Garcia allows a three-run home run to Youkilis to tie the game at 4-4 in the top of the third inning.

In the fifth, Garcia allows a solo home run to David Ortiz to let Boston take the lead 5-4.

Now, Garcia didn't have his best stuff on Sunday, which happens. Boston has good hitters who are playing well in the series.

But after the second inning, the Yankees didn't do a damn thing to get back at Lester. In fact, they just let Lester take over the game when he was basically on the ropes.

In the seventh, with Dustin Pedroia and Gonzalez on and one out, Youkilis hits a grounder to A-Rod at third, which looks like he'll pick up and try to step on third for the out.

Only, one thing is missing in A-Rod's glove, the ball. The ball trickles by A-Rod, allowing Pedroia to score and now it's 6-4 Boston.

This is a costly run here. Really costly.

Why? Because in the bottom of the seventh, A-Rod hits a double down the third base line, which gets bobbled by Carl Crawford, allowing Granderson to score all the way from first, which then makes it 6-5.

If, and that is a big if, A-Rod doesn't make the error at third, the game is tied at 5-5 and we have a different ball game. It's all right though, the Yankees now have momentum.

Boston intentionally walks Cano for the struggling Swisher. First and second with two outs, anyone want to take a wild guess what Swisher does with runners on?

You guessed it, he strikes out again in a big spot.

To throw salt on an open wound, in the eighth, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who is hitting .217 and hasn't homered all season, cranks his first one of the season into the right field seats off Chamberlain and it's now 7-5 Boston.

Saltalamacchia's home run was the final nail into the coffin for this series as the Yankees don't do anything for the rest of the game and go down 7-5 in the game and get swept at home.

The Yankees have now lost five in a row, all at home, have fallen out of first place by two games to the Tampa Bay Rays, and are now only two games above .500 at 20-18.

So, how do we sum up this series? One word: PATHETIC. Absolutely pathetic.

Now, of course, the games itself were bad enough. But the drama off the field made this even worse.

By now, we've all heard what happened Saturday night.

Jorge Posada was supposed to bat ninth in the lineup and went to Joe Girardi and asked out of the lineup.

Posada said his back was acting up. Girardi said Posada just needed a day off. Brian Cashman put his two sense in with comments that didn't make Posada look too good. Posada fires back at Cashman.

By Sunday morning, it looks like a total mess in the Bronx.

The stories were all over the Internet. There were talks of the Yankees suspending Posada and docking him pay.

Everyone started forming their own opinion about this Posada situation. One writer on Bleacher Report even suggested the Yankees designate Posada for assignment as a message.

That honestly, is not the best solution to someone who has been a key part of the team for 16 years.

Posada did apologize to Girardi and Cashman and the Yankees will not punish him, which hopefully ends this drama for now.

But, what a bad weekend for all of that to come about. Right in the middle of the Yankees getting their rear-ends kicked by Boston in their own ballpark.

This weekend was an utter disaster for the Yankees from beginning to end.

All three of their starters in Colon, Sabathia and Garcia took losses.

All three of Boston's starters, Buchholz, Beckett and Lester all got victories.

Their hitters failed to hit with runners in scoring position in every game.

And, of course, they got swept by their most hated rivals at home.

So, if you can get the disgusted taste out of your mouth and attempt to shake off this weekend's events, now what?

Well, the Yankees are now on the road for two games against the now first place Rays at Tropicana Field.

This just reeks of more disaster for the Yankees going into a road series against Tampa while of dropping five straight at home.

Now, some of you might be thinking, it's only May 16. At 20-18, there is still a lot of baseball left to be played.

Yes, I know. It's early.

And the Yankees are falling into a ton of bad habits.

Their first one is relying too much on the home run. It's great that they are hitting them. But Kevin Long and Joe Girardi need to work on situation hitting because the home runs don't always come, especially if you are facing decent pitching.

Which bring me into the second and biggest bad habit, not hitting with runners in scoring position.

It's been going on for a while now, but this weekend alone could have made me pull my hair out from the numerous times the Yankees had chances to cash in on scoring opportunities and didn't get the job done.

Right now, this all falls onto Girardi's shoulders.

He's the manager of this team. He needs to get his players on the right path.

Granted, the blame also does fall onto the players as well and Girardi can't hit, pitch or play for his guys. I know that.

But, it's also his responsibility to have his team in the right path. The Yankees are anything but on the right path right now.

You know if he were still alive, Girardi would be getting the phone call from George Steinbrenner to meet him in Tampa Bay for a heart-to-heart meeting.

There would be words said. Feelings expressed. Maybe a threat or two thrown in. But George would be making a bold point to his manager.

Pretty much it would be to get control of the situation or find another job.

You likely won't be seeing or hearing that from Hal Steinbrenner, who is the controlling owner now for the Yankees. It's just not Hal's style.

Unless Hal pulls a page from his father's play book, Girardi is safe for now with the team. Is that hurting, with Girardi not feeling any sense of urgency from the front office? Maybe. But, then again, it is only May.

Are the Yankees falling apart this early in the season?

I don't think so, only because there is so much talent on this team and they are too good to be playing like this on a consistent basis.

If they did, then Girardi's job would need to be put into major question.

The Yankees need to snap out of this early season funk they are in if they want to compete in the East. Especially now that Boston is right back in the thick of the division chase.

They embarrassed themselves this weekend, and they should be ashamed of the way they played. Case closed.

Now, they need to move on from this and start playing better baseball.

Otherwise, a repeat of the 2008 season will take place with no October playoff baseball.