You have to hand it to the New York Yankees. After six weeks of flopping around the like the Baltimore Orioles usually do this time of year, the Yankees actually looked very familiar.
They looked like your Boston Red Sox.
OK, it was only for one night. But if last night, a relatively easy win for the Yankees (6-2) over the Sox, is more the rule than the exception, and I expect it will be, then the Red Sox will not have a five-month cakewalk they've seemingly had here over the last three weeks.
Would Joe Torre getting fired be a good thing for the Yankees, baseball or this rivalry? No, no and absolutely no.
Other than hiring the crazy Larry Bowa as a replacement (he apparently is the third choice behind Joe Giardi and Don Mattingly), which would send this rivalry back to '78 days at least in the short term, we need at least another year of Torre.
Admit it, Red Sox fans. Other than a quick chuckle, a crummy Yankees team just isn't that much fun. This Sox-Yanks series lacks the panache the previous two series had.
Nearly a dozen games between them doesn't help.
But let's get back to the Yankees. Since the beginning of May they have played 20 games. In 16 of those games Yankees pitchers have allowed 4 runs or less. Yet the Yankees are only 11-9 over that stretch, including last night.
The moral of the story is that this offense has struggled and maybe this pitching problem, particularly in the starting rotation, isn't as bad as we originally thought.
The bullpen is another issue. Unlike the Sox, the Yankees have no stability after a starter comes out of the game. Even Mariano Rivera is not so automatic any more.
As Tigers manager Jim Leyland said last week, "When your closer blows a few games, your team loses confidence. That's a tough thing to lose."
The Yankees just don't seem confident these days whether it has any traces to the faulty bullpen or not. If you didn't think the Red Sox were going to mount a huge comeback in the eighth inning last night with Julio Lugo up with the bases loaded, you were in the minority.
The Red Sox, even in defeat, have this quiet confidence this early season. Not a lot bothers them, including and especially the Yankees Curse.
As was the case with Roger Clemens, the Yankees need this series more and the odds sure look like they will win it, probably two of three games. For one thing, it's in Yankee Stadium. The pitching matchups favor the Yankees, who have their three best hurlers (Chien-Ming Wang, Mike Mussina tonight and Andy Pettitte tomorrow) facing the Sox.
Tonight, the Red Sox throw Julian Tavarez out there and Curt Schilling will be leaving his blogging desk for the finale in the Bronx.
Who knows, maybe the Yankees will win all three and make it 20 percent more interesting than it's been around here. Does it really matter if the Red Sox get swept? I don't think so.
The Red Sox have too much going their way. They also don't take these games personally, which is a tremendous trait to have.
So there you have it. The Red Sox win either way. They either maintain or gain their lead over everyone in baseball or they get their Yankees back.
I say the next time these teams meet in Boston, with Roger Clemens returning, is when New England will really take notice.
Here's hoping Joe Torre goes nowhere. Here's hoping the Yankees make this a little more interesting than they have.
My guess is they will. And that necessarily won't be a bad thing.
Bill Burt is executive sports editor of Eagle-Tribune Publishing. You can e-mail him at bburt@eagletribune.com.
