"You look around baseball and it seems that every team in contention right now it's like, 'Oh my God, the bullpen is falling apart,"' lefty reliever Matt Thornton said on Monday. "I was reading the paper and it's like, 'The Mets' bullpen is falling apart, the Twins' bullpen is falling apart, the Phillies have their problems, Brewers' bullpen is in shambles, a month ago it was the Cubs, they're bullpen was shot.' But it's going to happen.

"You normally have six or seven guys in a pen and not all of them are going to be on. We had a nice run for a couple months where everyone was on and it makes you look great, but you hit rough spots. Everyone has to step it up and we'll be fine."

Easy for Thornton to say; he's one of the few relievers that has stepped it up lately, carrying a 1.42 ERA with 17 strikeouts over his last 14 games into the series with New York.

Closer Bobby Jenks? A 9.45 ERA over his last five. Octavio Dotel? Owned a 9.72 ERA in his last 11 with six homers in that span.

As a unit, the bullpen is 1-2 with a 6.31 ERA in September -- their worst month of the year so far.

But the real sting is this was a group that showed dominance, posting a 2.15 ERA in May and then a 2.20 ERA in June.

At least Guillen was a voice of reason.

"I'm not happy with them," Guillen said of the bullpen. "Obviously they're a big part of this and we're here because of them, but at the same time the last week or so we've struggled. I'm not going to let that happen. It's a long season, but when you have a season like this, your offense is going to struggle, your defense, your pitching staff, but we're not in a situation to let this thing slip away from our hands. We don't have the luxury to pitch the way we're pitching right now.

"We have a chance to win this (division). But we're in a stretch right now where everything has to go right. If it doesn't, we're not going to get where we want to get."

YANKEES 4, WHITE SOX 2: New York got to Mark Buehrle early on, when Xavier Nady hit a two-run homer off the lefty in the second, but the southpaw turned in a solid outing, going six innings, allowing just those two runs on six hits in the no-decision. The bullpen? Well, that remained a problem.

With the game tied 2-2 and Horacio Ramirez facing Wilson Betemit with Nady on second, the lefty gave up the RBI double and then a Johnny Damon RBI single. The Sox looked deflated after that, and had no answer.