FOR WET-BLANKET YANKEES, IT MIGHT AS WELL RAIN UNTIL SEPTEMBER

INCONSISTENT is an adjective that’s been used to describe the 2008 New York Yankees. Consistently bad might be more appropriate.

How else can you characterize the ineptitude of a team that has managed to lose the first game of their last seven series?

Not since their 1-0 win in Boston on July 25th have the Yanks won the opening game. And you don’t win too many series from 1-0 down.

Last night’s 2-1 defeat in Toronto was a microcosm of the season. It wasn’t down to bad starting pitching. Darrell Rasner made just one mistake in seven innings.

Once again, it was due to their inability to come up with a big hit when they needed it – and another appalling error in the outfield.

Melky Cabrera was sent down because of his poor form with the bat. But you can bet your mortgage that he would have caught the long fly ball makeshift centerfielder Johnny Damon dropped to hand the Blue Jays victory.

Even then, there was time for the overpaid and underachieving Alex Rodriguez to run himself out at second base with another error in judgment.

Girardi let down by senior players

Manager Joe Girardi must be beside himself at seeing so many mistakes made by so many experienced players.

The Yanks had controlled the game for the best part of seven innings – only to waste all their hard work.

Most other teams in the American League have worked out a way to score runs against A.J. Burnett – he gave up eight hits and four runs in six innings on his previous start in Detroit – but not the Yanks.

And unlike Yankees teams of old, they were unable to tack on to the one run they scored in the very first inning.

Perhaps Girardi should have canceled Monday’s day-off. After scoring 15 runs against the Kansas City Royals on Sunday, their star-studded batting line-up sleepwalked their way through another game.

With Tampa Bay, Boston, the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins all winning, the Yankees now find themselves 6.5 games back in the wild card standings.

Right now, the question isn’t whether there will be October baseball in the Bronx. It’s whether September baseball will hold any meaning for the fallible, feeble, fumbling New York Yankees.