New York, NY (WFAN)  -- Crisis management was Joe Torre's specialty. Calm in the face of the storm. Now, with the offense in early season struggles, the young pitchers showing their youth, injuries to his two most indispensable players, and 5 of the next 7 games against the Red Sox, it's Joe Girardi's turn to show us how he handles his first Yankee-ontroversy.

Sure they will start to hit. Girardi is right about that. They may have started to wake up with the 6 runs they scored Thursday night. But what we're finding out is that the construction of this lineup is still limiting what they can do offensively to move things along. We all went "ooh" and "ah" watching the Yanks put down a couple of sacrifice bunts last week to win a game. But Girardi didn't re-invent the wheel there. It was Damon and Jeter up in the batting order. He said himself that you don't bunt there with A-Rod and Giambi up. So that wasn't any departure from Joe Torre ways. But when the team goes into a prolonged slump like they have in the first 10 games of the year, there still isn't a whole lot you can do about it except to wait for guys who know how to hit remember they know how to hit.

The pitching is a bit more interesting. The Yankees are in as close to rebuilding mode as they are going to get with young pitchers like Hughes and Kennedy in the rotation. Both have struggled at points early this season and that's a quick shot of reality. No, they weren't going to trade either one for Johan Santana but that doesn't mean that they're going to pitch like Santana right now. Maybe not ever actually, but that's not the point. The idea is that these guys are still learning and they're learning on the job. They will struggle from time to time just like you saw with Kennedy against the Rays and Hughes against the Royals. They will get better. But you're going to have to live with this, because in case you haven't noticed---the Yankees are prepared to do just that.

Not having Jeter and Posada in the lineup isn't going to help this team right now either. At least Posada can DH now and whacked a home run last night. Neither one was hitting before they got hurt, but there is a leadership aspect to having these guys playing. Alberto Gonzalez or Wilson Betemit at shortstop at Fenway Park. Neither one is Derek Jeter. Jose Molina is a different story. He could be the prototypical backup catcher: great at handling pitchers, strong arm to slow down a running game, good enough with the bat to produce a little bit, and good enough that you're not afraid to catch him a few days or even weeks in a row should something happen to your main guy. However, when your team is struggling offensively, I think you'd much rather have the guy who hit .338 last year.

And now it's the Red Sox. They're not flying too high right now either. Some of their guys are no doubt dragging a little from all the frequent flier miles they racked up. Now they lose Mike Lowell. David Ortiz is 3-for36. And until breaking out for 12 runs Thursday night they had scored only a handful more runs than the Yankees. Their rookies have struggled a bit too - Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz are a combined 1-3. So while we're sitting here worrying about what's happening with the Yankees, Red Sox fans are doing the same thing.

But while Terry Francona polishes his World Series rings and tries to figure out which one to wear to dinner tomorrow night, Joe Girardi must guide his team through their first tough stretch of the year. Not getting swept in KC was a start. We won't realistically be able to make any bold statements on the Yankees 2008 season off what happens in the next three days exclusively. But we will get to see how Joe Girardi grades out in his first exercise in crisis management.

Thanks for reading. Send comments and questions to yankees@wfan.com.

Sweeny