If the manager from the movie “Major League” were currently employed by the Yankees, here’s what he would be saying heading into tonight’s game against the Red Sox:
“We won yesterday. That’s two in a row. If we win today, that’s called a winning streak. It has happened before.”
It has, just not this season. After two straight wins against the Rays, the Yankees will have a chance to win three in a row for the first time this season tonight (7:05 p.m., YES, WCBS), when they return home for their first game at Yankee Stadium in nine days.
And that’s all they need to worry about against Boston. Forget the history. Forget the rivalry. Forget the shift in dominance.
This is just another series, albeit a short one at two games. It’s an opportunity to jump in the standings and move up a full game rather than a half game against an AL East foe. It’s no different than playing the Blue Jays or the Orioles.
Seriously.
Yes, these are baseball’s two biggest superpowers, playing in baseball’s version of the Cold War, but when you’re swimming in mediocrity, there’s no point focusing on the history of players who are no longer alive and playoff games in 2003 and 2004 that involved players no longer with either team. Even if each series loss for the respective fan bases were the equivalent of being hit with a nuclear bomb.
Save it for September, and maybe October. That’s a time to get engulfed in a rivalry. That’s a time when a decisive game against the Red Sox, rather than against the Rangers, makes a difference.
Regular-season rivalry games barely register in the collective memories of fans. How fast did the glow of the five-game Yankees sweep against Boston at Fenway Park in 2006 lose its luster after losing handily to the Tigers in the playoffs? The Yankees will never do better than that against the Red Sox in the regular season, and it meant nothing in the long run.
No regular season win against Boston will mean anything until the Yankees beat the Red Sox in the playoffs or win a World Series again. Unless 1949 repeats itself and the Yankees can enter the playoffs while sending their rivals home at the end of the regular season.
Now those are rivalry games.
Pitching matchup:
Yankees RHP Chien-Ming Wang (3-0. 1.23 ERA): Uncertainties surrounded the right-hander after last season’s poor postseason outings, but Wang has been the only sure thing in a Yankees rotation of question marks. He’s allowed three runs in 22 innings over three starts, and put in his best performance in his prior outing, a 2-1 win over Boston. He pitched a one-run, two-hit, complete game without allowing a walk.
Red Sox RHP Clay Buchholz (0-1, 3.27 ERA): The heralded rookie has not duplicated last season’s success in his first two starts, but has shown flashes of the promise that warrants his hype. After allowing four runs, with seven strikeouts, in five innings in a 10-2 loss at Toronto, Buchholz improved in a 4-1 loss to the Bombers, allowing one run and four hits over six innings.