April has come and gone and the New York Yankees are now 9-14. If they were the Tampa Bay Devil Rays or Pittsburgh Pirates that record wouldn’t be a problem. In fact some fans might even be content with the mark. But they are neither of those teams, and their payroll is three times more than the payroll’s of those two teams combined. The bottom line? Their fans expect more, their manager expects more, and worst off - their owner expects way more. That’s bad news.

The good news - kind of - for the Yankees is that their pitching staff is continuing to get healthier. Ace starter Chien-Ming Wang has returned from an early-season stint on the disabled list last week, and has made two starts since being re-inserted into the top of the rotation. Andy Pettitte, who’s been used as a long-reliever to help mop up the messes of less reliable starters in the last couple of weeks, has now been inserted back into the rotation, this time presumably for the long-haul. And Mike Mussina, who’s missed the last couple of weeks because of a hamstring injury he suffered while pitching in Minnesota, is expected to make his third start of the season on Thursday night.

I didn’t accidentally say that the news of having all three of these veteran starters back is ‘kind of’good. I meant that. Truth is, aside from Wang, I don’t trust anybody on this team’s rotation, and even Wang has been rocked in each of his first two starts with the team. (The 19-game-winner of a year ago has given up four-runs in each of his two starts, and hasn’t yet recorded more than 19-outs in a game.) Mussina’s ERA through his first two starts was 9.00, which will obviously come down, but he is now 38, and is assuredly not the pitcher he was when New York signed him eight-years ago.

Pettitte - a lefty who is 34-years-old - has actually pitched well, but he too is getting older. He had a terrific season a year ago, and could potentially pitch effectively this year, but even if he does, the Yankees would only have two reliable starters. Aside from the afore mentioned arms, Carl Pavano is hurt again, and might not pitch for a while. When he does come back and pitch, the over/under for the amount of innings he’ll throw before being DL’ed again will likely be slated at fifteen or so. The bottom line? You can’t rely on him.

Phillip Hughes is as talented a pitching prospect as there is, and I love him, but he’s only 20. He’s not ready to pitch against many of the game’s more talented lineups, a couple of whom (the Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays) the Yankees will play 19-times this season, because they reside within New York’s division. He will be a star one day, and likely an all-star within the next few seasons, but he isn’t there yet.

With Hughes and Wang struggling in their first couple of starts in 2007, and with Mussina and Pavano on the shelf, you’d expect that New York’s offense would find a way to bail the team out, right? Not so much. All-star second-baseman Robinson Cano, who hit .342 last year, is hitting .270 after having gone 3-for-his-last-21 at the plate. Hideki Matusi is hitting .207, having only roped out three-hits in the last week. And Bobby Abreu, a career .301 hitter is hitting .253 after a 2-for-23 stretch in his last week of baseball.

The only sad thing about this situation is that a quality manager is likely going to lose his job. Reports surfaced this weekend that Joe Torree, New York’s battled-tested skipper of more than a decade, could be fired in the coming days if New York doesn’t start winning. While the team’s lack of success this month has had everything to do with pitching and nothing to do with Torree, the club’s owner needs a scapegoat. And as sad as it is, Torree is his best option.

Fans in New York -the same group that want Torree to keep his job- think that the Yankees will turn it around as soon as their pitching staff gets healthy again. I don’t think that the staff is that good, which is why New York might struggle throughout the summer. They have enough offense to bash their way towards a wild card birth, but I don’t see much more success than that for this team.