It’s a damp morning in New York with rain on the schedule for the rest of the day. Hopefully, it will clear up by tonight so the Yanks and Twins can get their game in. If not, I suppose they’ll play two tomorrow. While Minnie is in town be sure and check out some of the fine people from the Twinkies-blogging mafia: Aaron Gleeman, John Bonnes, Seth Stohs and of course, the rookie of the year herself, Batgoil.

The local papers are filled with articles about the Yankees’ pitching woes. In the Times, Tyler Kepner reports:

No matter what team the Yankees play this time, this postseason staff is an enigma. Will Vazquez be included? Brown? In what order? When asked on Sunday if he had ever been less certain of his rotation on the eve of the playoffs, Stottlemyre said no.

“This is probably the least of the nine years I’ve been here, about how our pitching situation is going to line up,” he said. “I still think it will. I’m certainly not down on everybody. I still think it’ll align itself here in the last week. I still think we’ll be very competitive in the postseason with our pitching.”

It has been months since Vazquez and Brown have looked consistently strong. Scouts have suggested a variety of mechanical flaws nagging Vazquez, including a lower arm angle and awkward landing position on the mound. Brown, essentially, threw batting practice to the Red Sox on Sunday, offering high fastballs with no movement at a velocity that did not exceed 90 miles an hour.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox beat Tampa Bay last night and clinched a spot in the playoffs. They remain three games behind the Yankees in the loss column with six games to play.