BOSTON – The pride of the Yankees has been replaced by the arrogance of the Yankees.

They think they’re so good they can fight 25-man rosters with 21 serviceable men. They lack depth in all areas and do nothing about it. Maybe getting swept by the surprising Red Sox would be just the smelling salts George Steinbrenner needs waved under his nose, just the embarrassment he needs to listen to those around him who know it’s silly to play a 162-game schedule short-handed.

Mike Figga has become the symbol of the second-place Yankees, who dropped a game-and-a-half behind the Red Sox after losing 6-0 at Fenway Park, where the Sox go for the sweep tonight.

Figga has been with the Yankees since Opening Day and has not appeared in a game. He has become the rope in the tug-of-war between the Tampa and New York factions that run the Yankees, losers of 8 of their last 10.

Steinbrenner fears if the Yankees outright Figga, some catching-starved club will claim him off waivers. Figga’s from Tampa and Steinbrenner is oh, so proud of Tampa athletes. So Figga, a well-liked guy, rots on the bench, which is bad for him, bad for the Yankees, bad for the players’ faith in leadership.

Tim Raines, Darryl Strawberry, Homer Bush and Graeme Lloyd are gone and not a one of them has been replaced adequately. The Yankees need a left-handed bat and speed off the bench, a second major league-caliber lefty out of the pen.

Ricky Ledee was supposed to offer both Raines’ ability to make contact and Strawberry’s power. He did neither and works for the Columbus Clippers now. Clay Bellinger, a poor man’s Luis Sojo, doesn’t offer the jolt of speed off the bench that Bush gave the Yankees. Tony Fossas could be effective in small doses the way Lloyd was if he faced guys his own age the way Lloyd did. But to do that, Fossas would have to join the old-timers’ circuit. Not a bad idea, come to think of it.

Two of the club’s three anonymous relievers – Fossas, Jay Tessmer and Dan Naulty – will be gone as soon as Roger Clemens and Jeff Nelson are activated.

That will help, but won’t do anything for an offense that has scored 18 runs in eight games.

”These guys know it’s just around the corner,” Clemens said of the offense. ”We could be in first place by 10 games and there are going to be some grumpy people around here. It’s good to see the level of expectations so high. I’ve never been in that situation with a group of men before. I like it.”

He would like it much better if the Yankees really were 10 games up, a place he can begin to take them.

A deeper rotation and bullpen and a more useful bench would help him get there in a hurry.

A roster shakeup is long overdue. That the Yankees didn’t do it before the Red Sox series is an indication the organization didn’t view this series with the same gravity as did the Red Sox.

Right-hander Brian Rose, called up from Pawtucket to make the start in place of sore-shouldered Juan Pena, tossed seven shutout innings of six-hit, one-walk ball. Catcher Jason Varitek went 4-for-4, homered twice and drove in three runs.

Rose, a local boy, understood how meaningful the start was.

”This is a big series, regardless of what anybody says,” Rose said. ”It’s Yankees-Red Sox. Being from Dartmouth (Mass.), I know what that means to the people around here. I had a job to do and that was to keep this team in first place.”

On the other side, Hideki Irabu – if his body language were any lazier he would fall asleep on the mound – arrogantly challenged Red Sox hitters with belt-high fastballs that split the plate in half. They knew what to do with them.

Removed from the game with two outs in the fourth inning, Irabu allowed nine hits and five earned runs. The pitching line would have been worse but for Bernie Williams making a leaping catch at the wall to deny hard-hitting Jose Offerman extra bases in the two-run fourth inning.

The return of Clemens will boost the Yankees, all right, but it won’t do anything to firm up the sagging underbelly of the rotation.

Forty percent of the time the Yankees send either Irabu or Orlando Hernandez to the mound. There was a time when that didn’t sound bad at all. Now is not that time.

El Duque takes the mound tonight to the sounds of ”Sweep! Sweep!” raining on him from the intimate Fenway seats. In his past six starts, El Duque is 1-4 with a 7.86 ERA and 0-3 with an 11.57 ERA in the last three.

Two-thirds of the way over, this series has been a mismatch made in Fenway heaven.

Back in spring training, when the Yankees dealt for Clemens and Red Sox GM Dan Duquette was getting hammered for losing Mo Vaughn to the Angels via free agency the way he lost Clemens to the Blue Jays, this scenario would have seemed unimaginable.

Watching the teams play head to head makes the standings seem a little less fluky, less fleeting. May isn’t September, but it isn’t March, either.

The Yankees would do well by themselves to pretend it is July 31, the trading deadline. Time to plug all the leaks.