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When the Yankees went heavy on relievers at the trade deadline, they talked about being able to shorten games with their bullpen.

But they wanted to have the flexibility to do that by choice, not by necessity.

While the Yankees bullpen has had enough problems getting out of its own way of late, it has not gotten many assists from its rotation.

It is difficult to have a smoothly functioning bullpen if the manager is having to dip into that bullpen by the fifth or sixth inning almost every day, which has often been the case over the past five and a half weeks.