The Boys Are Back

After a nice little break, the boys are back. The second half of the season is upon us, and if you're a Yankee fan, like me, you have to be pleased with the way it's started. The Yanks beat the defending World Champs and snapped Jose Contreras' 17-game win streak. The Red Sox have dropped two straight to the A's. The Yankees are 1.5 games back. It's going to be a fun second half.
I've been saying for weeks that I'm not impressed with the Red Sox. They went 14-2 in interleague play. BFD. They're 3-6 since returning to the AL. I didn't see that coming. The Red Sox record against teams with a winning record now stands at 20-23. Not impressive. Incidentally, the Yankees are 24-21 against teams that are better than .500. Not impressive but better than the Sox. After setting an MLB record for consecutive games without an error (17), the Red Sox have committed errors in 7 of their last 11 games (11). The best defense in baseball suddenly doesn't look so good. Josh Beckett is probably one of the worst 11-5 pitchers in baseball. With his outing today his ERA climbs to a far from respectable 5.12. And the bullpen? Yikes. Nice outing today fellas. Even Papelbon is showing cracks in the armor with 3 blown saves in his last 9 save attempts. Every non-Sox fan was pretty dead on when they said that once interleague was over, the Sox would fall back to Earth. It's too bad they don't have more interleague games on the docket.
Today's win was a nice way to get things started. It got a little hairy there in the 9th, but Rivera stayed composed, Bubba made a great catch, and Sinatra was blaring from the speakers. Randy Johnson had a great outing. He really made only 1 mistake, and that was giving up the 2nd inning run to Crede. That's 2 straight solid outings from The Unit. It's good to see he can still deliver. He had me worried for a while.
The offense still needs some punch. They're doing well but are capable of a lot more. Rumor has it the Yanks, and the Mets, are interested in Bobby Abreu. I wouldn't mind seeing him in Pinstripes. He gets on base, has some speed, and has some power. What team wouldn't want that? Everybody knows that the only way the Yanks are getting into the postseason is by winning the division. When the Yanks lost Sheffield and Matsui, I didn't think there was anyway that Cashman was going to let the team go without finding replacements. But he showed some resolve, and it's paid off. The youngsters have played well and have kept the Yankees in the hunt. 1.5 games back in mid-July is nothing. Sox fans should be PO'd that they're not up by more. The Yankees have given them every chance to bury them, but they haven't been able to seal the deal. The same thing happened last year. The Yanks played like doo-doo but everyone let them hang around and they won the division.
People are discounting the Yankees saying this isn't their year and I don't get that. I guess it's so much easier to be a pessimist and think they won't win. Right now, I have no reason to think they won't. The Sox don't scare me.
I'm tired and it's too hot in this house.
Go Yankees.
J