Imagine, if you will, that you’ve been tasked with the duty of assembling a ball club. (Not a huge leap for those of you who play fantasy.)  There is a lot to take into consideration. You have to evaluate the worth of each prospect, assess the possible risks that go along with signing him, weigh what you have against what you need, what you want against what you can afford, make both short-term and long-term plans, acknowledging that you may have to sacrifice one for the sake of the other.

Funny, it doesn’t sound all that different from, well, life.

Call me inane, but I would posit that baseball serves as a pretty decent reflection of life. In baseball, you try to put together the best team possible, using a combination of raw data, intelligence and financial resources.  In baseball, as in life, there are those who have an advantage over others from the start. They’re smarter or have access to more capital.

Baseball isn’t fair.  Neither is life.

Still, in baseball, as in life, victory cannot be reduced to a mere matter of more. There are factors for which you can never account, factors for which you can never plan.  Sometimes, you sign Carl Pavano to a four-year $40 million contract, and he spends the bulk of that time on the DL with mystery ailments.  Sometimes, you sign Manny Ramirez to a $45 million contract only to watch him earn a fifty game suspension for the use of performance enhancing drugs.  Sometimes, Carlos Beltran winds up on the DL, putting the punctuation mark on a season that’s already taken a massive toll on the key players in your lineup.

The point is, these things happen. You can’t plan for them, but you have to deal with them.

The Yanks have had to deal with their fair share of issues, and pitching has been among the biggest. With an ERA of 12.30, Wang, supposedly our homegrown ace, has given us cause for concern, even since his latest stint on the DL.  We’ve also seen Burnett, Pettitte and Joba struggle terribly at various points in the season. All in all, we don’t have what you’d call a rotation that inspires a ton of confidence. Yet, lately, things seem to be settling down.  Our pitching staff has averaged a 3.84 ERA during our last four series.  For Wang’s part, he finally managed a decent start, pitching a solid three-run five-inning outing.  (Tonight’s start should give us a better sense of whether this outing was simply a fluke or if it constitutes the beginning of Wang’s renaissance.)  As for relief, between a very reliable Hughes and the recent return of Bruney, we can be cautiously — emphasize cautiously — optimistic about our bullpen.

Of course, that’s just our pitching.  If you can liken baseball to life, then you can liken both life and baseball to that game Whac-A-Mole.  You know the one — often found on boardwalks and in amusements parks.  If you’re anything like me,  you find Whac-A-Mole to be unduly stressful for a leisure activity. As soon as you’ve effectively eliminated one mole, another emerges before you’ve had the chance to even catch your breath.

Like baseball and life.

A-Rod, who has been on a rapid downhill spiral since his return from hip surgery, has recently admitted that he is not quite up to par.  Go figure.  In June, A-Rod is batting .153 with .288 slugging percentage.  We sort of gathered that something was going on.  Of course,  Nady has been out since April.  Melky, who has largely stepped in to save the day since Nady’s absence, has been batting .194 since injuring his shoulder when he collided with the center field wall in Texas last month.

When one mole dies, another finds new life.

At the end of the day, assembling the best team possible is only about a third of the battle.  Learning how to negotiate the unforeseen — the unforeseeable — will ultimately determine your outcome.

The loss of Nady, a seemingly devastating blow at the onset of our season, opened the door for Melky, providing him with an opportunity to prove his worth that he might not otherwise have been afforded.   Now, with both Melky and A-Rod struggling, Nady is making his way back into the lineup, and hopefully he’ll be able to pick up the slack. Meanwhile, Teixeira  has finally taken on a leadership role in the lineup — we all anticipated he would.  He’s a second half of the season guy; he’ll likely keep the momentum going. So, the moles pop up, and you find a way to whack them right back down.

Of course, every Bombers fan was concerned when CC left Saturday’s game with bicep tendonitis. I know he’s set to pitch on Friday, but seeing is believing.  Until we get through Friday, the jury’s still out on his health as far as I’m concerned.  Worst case scenario: our coveted hot stove acquisition  ends up on the DL.  If this were to happen, I would argue that ours would not be the better team because we had him but because we knew how to manage when we lost him.  We’ve got Hughes in the pen, and I’m not convinced that he belongs there. (By not convinced, I mean I’m certain that he doesn’t.)  Obviously, he’s no long-term replacement for CC.  However, if CC does end up on the DL or another Bombers starter were to flounder again, Hughes is more than prepared to fill in the blank.  The point is, things happen.  You don’t bemoan your bad luck; you make it work.

It probably sounds a whole lot like what I’m trying to say “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”  I’m not.  I hate aphorisms. (P.S. This particular expression fails to take into account a key ingredient in lemonade: sugar.)

Though, I guess if there is an aphorism that sums up my general message, I would say that it’s the old Italian adage, “No matter who dies, somebody has to make the dinner.”