AL East

The Yankees are on the verge of their 2010 season ending.

After winning Game One, the Yankees dropped Games Two, Three and Four and fell behind the Texas Rangers 3-1 in the American League Championship Series.

The Yankees also lost Mark Teixeira for the remainder of the 2010 postseason with a strained hamstring, which is a crucial loss to the Yankees offense and defense.

As the saying goes, if you can’t hit the baseball get the hell off the field was the theme coming into Game 5 tonight in the Bronx.

Instead, it was the New York Yankees who got the job done beating the Texas Rangers 7-2, in a must-win to stay-in the series game.

When the Yankees signed Mark Teixeira couple of years ago in the offseason, they thought they were going to get a guy who could be Mr. October. They thought they would have a leader.

But they've gotten nothing so far out of their petulant star. His injury served as a symbol of what has gone wrong for him in October.

The only good thing Teixeira has done is provide protection for Alex Rodriguez and play good defense. That’s all well and good, but for the money he is being paid, he should be doing better.

I remember back in the day I was sitting in the dugout during one of my summer league games and after we scored a run on only one hit in an inning because the opposing pitcher walked three guys, my coach turned to me in while I was standing in the on-deck circle and said to me “Oh those bases on balls. They’ll bite you in the ass every time.”

It’s almost trite to ask what people initially think about when they ponder the New York Yankees and the postseason.

Some will say a team resting on the ink of a paycheck, while others will say an indelible mark on baseball’s identity.

But when you clear the air on a seemingly endless argument, you’re left with the only topic that is forward focus: The 2010 ALCS.

Rick Rypien, a center for the Vancouver Canucks found himself getting into a shoving match with a fan in the middle of a hockey game against the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night.

While fans at the Yankees vs. Rangers ALDS Game 2 were seen throwing trash into the Rangers' bullpen on Monday.

Obviously, there's plenty of very unhappy fans out there—that becomes frustrated with what's going on in the game. 

To fans of other teams, it probably doesn't sound so bad.

Sure, the New York Yankees look to be on the verge of blowing the ALCS.  Down 3 games to 1 with two remaining games on the road, a Cliff Lee start to look forward to and Mark Teixeira's bad hammie to overcome, one could even call the Yankees' 2010 chances "bleak" as of Wednesday afternoon.  But they're still in their second straight ALCS after winning the World Series last year, and they've still got a shot to make their fourth Series in the last ten years.

The preseason favorites. The favorites after 162 games. The favorites after Game 6 in 2009.

These titles refer to the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies.

Yet they stand on the wrong side of the win-loss hyphen.

Both are losing to unproven teams with little postseason experience who were considered World Series long-shots before the season—the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants.

Here's some advice to both teams on how they can turn things around.

Where to begin?

Last night at Yankee Stadium, Bengie Molina and Josh Hamilton propelled the Texas Rangers to a 10-3 drubbing of the New York Yankees to take a three games to one lead in the ALCS.

With New York now on the brink of elimination, Game 4 could mark the final nail in the coffin for the Yankees.

There is so much to break down from this game. So many things that could've gone the Yankees' way didn't, and there were so many missed opportunities and questionable decisions.

When the 2010 MLB Playoffs began, almost everyone who watches or cares for baseball penciled the New York Yankees in as a probable World Series participant. A great deal of folks also had the Yankees winning it all,...again. Ah,...the Texas Rangers say "Not so Fast," and are exposing the Yankees for what they are, OLD.