Game 124: Avoiding the sweep

Last night seemed like D-Day for the Yankees, on a count of how many "the Yankees are finished" columns I saw floating around Twitter this morning.

The Bombers dropped the second of three games to the Astros last night, falling 5-2 after another late-inning collapse by the Yankees' bullpen, which has now let them down in back-to-back days.

Just five games back of the Detroit Tigers for the second AL Wild Card, the Yankees might be able to pull something off, but at this point it seems very unlikely from the team that hasn't won five straight games since April.

This was suppose to be a big week in which they took advantage of two bad baseball teams -- the Astros and White Sox -- but now they're trying to salvage a game from the Astros.

Today's lineup against Houston:

LF Brett Gardner
SS Derek Jeter
CF Jacoby Ellsbury
1B Mark Teixeira
2B Martin Prado
3B Chase Headley
C Francisco Cervelli
RF Ichiro Suzuki
DH Zelous Wheeler

SP Brandon McCarthy