The best part, or the worst—depending on your point of view—of having the Yankees lose an afternoon game on YES, as they did today, is that you get the instant feedback from the radio call-in rock-heads right after the postgame show, when Mike and the Mad Dog is simulcast on YES.

So here it was, maybe a half an hour after Mariano Rivera was rocked, and here came the opinions, the reactionary, over-the-top, panic-striken opinions of people who should know better but don’t.

1) Why didn’t Joe Torre use Joba Chamberlain instead of Mariano? Are you kidding me? Is this serious? You want to use an unproven rookie in a pennant race over the greatest closer of all-time? What do you think the reaction might have been if Torre went to Chamberlain instead of Rivera and Chamberlain had thrown away the game in the 10th? My God.

2) Rivera should not be cut any more slack. Hello? Granted the guy gets hit sometimes, even gives up a run now and then, and, yes, blows a save. He had just racked up 19 in a row until he blew two in a row this week. But he shouldn’t be cut any more slack. Is this a real take? Or was this somebody want to hear his own voice on radio and couldn’t come up with a topic? The same guy, or another guy, I don’t remember for sure, said he’s not so sure about whether the Yankees should re-sign Rivera. Yeah, and watch the teams—like the Mets and Red Sox—line up to sign him.

3) Then you get Francesa himself practically starting an argument with Sweeny Murti that if kids like Phil Hughes are going to be pitching in the pennant race, then they can’t use the excuse that they’re rookies if they fail. How stupid is that? Hughes is here because he’s the best fifth starter the Yankees have in the organization, and if he fails it might be because he’s a rookie. There’s no mutual exclusivity on this. The kid is here to win, to produce. If he fails, or gets knocked around, what’s the difference what the reason is? You’re not going to send him back to the minors just because the excuse, legitimate as it may be, if he fails, is that he’s inexperienced. Murti wasn’t following Francesa’s point, and frankly neither was I. But Mike wanted to make his point and argue over it, for some reason.

The Yankees have now lost two in a row, and that’s not terrible. It’s going to happen. But the hole they dug early on made losing streaks something they cannot afford. They are going to have a losing streak or two in these last six or seven weeks. If they’re short, maybe they can survive. If they have a long one, four or five games, it could be fatal … because of where they’re coming from.

That’s why I believed, before the all-star break, that the Yankees would get into position to contend, but that they wouldn’t make the playoffs in the end—because they’re not good enough to avoid another slump, and they can’t afford one. They’ve done better than I thought they would, while the pitching has improved, four key starters have found their bats, and Brian Cashman has somehow built a much better bench. Are they good enough to keep it up? I don’t know.