Let's get this mess over with...

Here we go again:

I had written 90% of a very long blog post on Thursday night prior to being betrayed by an inadvertent mouse click, losing my work. Hopefully I can work some of that material back in here, but there's more pressing matters.

That matter at hand, which I'm writing in lieu of a full-fledged look back/look ahead post, is the whole purpose of this blog.

Starting tomorrow, the Red Sox and the Yankees face off. Again.

I was somewhat surprised that this is only the third Yankees-Red Sox series of the year (and that even a Yankee sweep will keep the Sox ahead 5-4 in the season series), as it seems that the Sox and the Yankees do little else than play each other.

I keep waiting for Fox and ESPN to go to Bud Selig and suggest that instead of just having the Sox and Yankees play each other 18 times and the other three teams in the AL East 18 times, that they just play each other 72 times a season. I imagine Selig responding by saying, "Why not round it up to an even 81?" This way, the Sox and the Yankees would play half their regular season games against each other instead of wasting time with the rest of the league. Maybe they should still play the O's, Jays, and Rays a few times - just exempt them from interleague play to accomodate things.

Of course, if anyone goes into Yankees-Sox withdrawl after this series, they play each other again, in Boston 6/1-6/3. This of course leaves us with the titillating prospect of having Clemens' make his 2007 debut for the Yankees against the Red Sox in Fenway.

This is of course a horrible idea, as the possibility of Red Sox Nation deploying a suicide bomber against the Rocket is not outside the realm of possibilty. Words like "devoted", "rabid", and "homicidal" can be used interchangably when it comes to Red Sox fans. I'd be curious to know how many UMass alums attend Fenway on any given day.

Of course, I'm still unclear on whether or not Clemens' will pitch on the road for the Yankees' this season. Does he just skip road trips for trips he isn't going to start? Or is he a Bronx-only pitcher? What if he's scheduled to pitch on the road against the Rangers?

And while I won't argue with his ability and willingness to educate young starters, what kind of example is he really setting for them? I can see Phillip Hughes thinking, "Hey, cool - so if I'm good enough, I can pull a Hamlet routine for the first two months out of the season and then get wildly overpaid for the rest!"

The Sox went 2-1 against their "regional rivals" the Braves, while the Yankees went 1-2 against the Mets. As someone who has attended reunions of Boston Braves players, I can appreciate the idea of this rivalry still existing on some primitive level. For many years my father echoed the "wrong team left town" sentiment. By that token, shouldn't the Yankees be playing the Dodgers and the Giants? Historically, identity with those fan bases in New York is stronger than Yankees vs. Mets ever has been.

Onto the chore of assessing the Sox-Yankees series...

Before I break down the pitching matchups, I'd like to broadly address the two teams offenses:

Right now, the Red Sox offense is a mystery to me, while the Yankees' is not.

To clarify my position in reverse order: the Yankees' can flat out mash. They've been hitting all year (Abreu and Cano's current funk nonwithstanding) and once there's a healthy quintent of Clemens/Wang/Mussina/Pettite/Hughes, watch out. All of a sudden the Yankees are going to be winning a bunch of 8-3 games.

As for the Red Sox offense - Ortiz is hitting like he should, Kevin Youkilis is hitting like only Billy Beane ever imagined, and Mike Lowell's bat is making up for his mystifying miscues with the glove... and that's it.

Every time the Sox put up 7+ runs in a game, I pore over the team's individual stats, and I just don't see it. They seem to be the beneficiaries of fluke moments of brilliance by underperforming hitters (read: Jason Varitek's bases-loaded 1st-inning triple today), which is not a terribly sustainable way to run a team.

I keep insisting that the offense will morph into the juggernaut that's it's supposed to, but how that will happen is not yet apparent. The idea that the team will trade for a bat at the trading deadline doesn't really fit, either. They're set at all 4 corners (due to a combination of production and contractual obligations), Alex Cora takes any heat off of Pedroia and Lugo up the middle, and Jason Varitek's ability behind the plate makes up for his production at the plate - as evidenced by the pitching staff's utter meltdown when he got hurt last year. David Ortiz is out of the discussion altogether.

Which brings me to Coco Crisp. The Man Who Would be Johnny has been a disappointment, but it should be noted that the Red Sox do not need to be a rotisserie team, and Coco is not killing them bouncing between the top and the bottom of the order and throwing up Web Gems in Center Field.

Besides, who would the Red Sox get? Andruw Jones or Torii Hunter? Andruw Jones has never seen a white, spherical object hurtling in his general direction that he didn't hack at, and Hunter is not the next Willie Mays, never will be, and has recently changed his middle initials to "D.L.".

Besides, despite what WEEI callers may think, these teams are also trying to reach the playoffs, and their first priority is not to trade their assets to Boston to make the Red Sox better.

I suppose their are options within the division - most notably Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli in Tampa Bay. Crawford is certainly athletic enough to play center, but would cost the Red Sox blue chipper Clay Bucholz at the very least. With Schilling likely gone (through free agency or retirement) the Red Sox don't need to trade starting pitching prospects. As for Baldelli, who has been on the trading block since he left Bishop Hendriken, the guy just can't stay healthy.

Ultimately, I hope that Theo practices some discretion and sticks it out with Coco. Again, the guy's not killing the Red Sox, and hot prospect Jacoby Ellsbury is the Center Fielder/Leadoff Hitter of the future in Boston.

In terms of how this series goes down, the Yankees' will hit (unless they don't - the Red Sox seem to be the ony team preventing this thus far this season, though Josh Beckett is noticably absent this time around) and the Red Sox offense - well, your guess is as good as mine.

Game 1: Wakefield vs. Wang
This matchup is nothing but wild speculation. Wakefield is only as good as his knuckler - which is a little like saying that Superman is only as good as the presence or absence of kryptonite - and has been pitching over his head thus far. Wang, the surprise ace of last year's Yankee staff, has been underachieving this year. The Sox benefitted from a split fingernail the last time they faced him, but the real Wang may show tomorrow.
Assessment: Too Close to Call

Game 2: Tavarez vs. Mussina
This should be easy, but Mike Mussina has not been pitching as well as his 2-2 record indicates, and Tavarez as been shockingly effective his last couple of starts. Apparently, once Joel Piniero took over his gasoline-artist-in-the-bullpen role, Tavarez decided to assume the mantle of Bronson Arroyo. Hopefully without the folk act and canoodling with underage coeds, though. The real Moose and the real JT may stand up on Tuesday, but it's not the slam dunk for the Yankees' that it should be.
Assessment: Too Close to Call

Game 3: Schilling vs. Pettite
Now that I've reached this point of the series, I realize that I can't make a prediction one way or another on any of these games. Unless Joe Torre decides to use Pettite in relief on Monday and Tuesday, that is. Schilling is no longer the '04 Schilling, but he isn't the '05-'06 Schilling either. He wins games with lousy peripheral stats (paging Derek Lowe! paging Derek Lowe!), but still, he wins games. Pettite's reputation has always been enhanced by pitching with the Yankees, but he's been the best they have this year.
Assesment (Surprise): Too close to call.

Other thoughts:

To take the obligatory look back on last week, the Sox took 3 of 4 from the Tigers - which sounds a lot more impressive now than it would have a few years ago. It's nice to see that one of the original 16 MLB teams is back out front and on top again, but I don't want to see them do it against Boston.

The Braves' series was something of an embarrasment - prior to Friday night's rainout, the scheduled Saturday matchup was a marquee duel between Matsuzaka and Smoltz. Instead, each team through out a last-minute-call-up-minor-league-schlub against the other team's ace.

Today was a nice surprise, though, as Tim Hudson (who was bound to fall to earth eventually) was outduelled by Kason Gabbard.

It's hard not to root for Kason Gabbard. There's the uniqueness of his name for one, and the fact that he was an 18 year-old 29th round pick by the Sox in 2000. He was called up last year when Dr. Charles Steinberg was floating a proposal to let the 500th fan into Fenway Park start that night's game. He was 1-3 (his lone win was also his best start, against the Yankees), with a 3.51 ERA. His 16 BBs against 15 Ks left a lot to be desired, though.

Tonight he got dinged when a couple of inherited runners scored, but the lefty struck out 7 and walked only 1. I don't know about his long-term upside, but I have more confidence in Gabbard making it happen than, say, Lenny DiNardo.

Boston underwent a flurry of transactions this weekend. Beckett went on the DL, Hansack was called up, Hansack pitched a game, Hansack was sent down, Gabbard was called up, Gabbard pitched a game, Gabbard was sent down, Manny Delcarmen was called up.

This leaves the Sox with (at the moment) a 4-man rotation. Ideally, Lester will be ready (or Gabbard will be called back up) by the time that 5th spot comes up. It is a little discouraging, however, that the Sox feel the need to have an 8-man bullpen against the Yankees.

Manny D. was a nice success story for the Sox last year - though he, Jon Lester, and Craig Hansen all imploded around the same time Tek went on the DL and Al Nipper returned the duty of coaching the pitchers to Dave Wallace. Still not convinced that was a coincidence.

I'll always have a soft spot for Manny D. - I worked with a High School teammate of his at a summer camp in '02, shortly after he'd been drafted, and I knew his name before a lot of others did.

And the fact that he and Hansen combined to squander a 9th-inning 8-run lead a few weeks ago is mitigated by the fact that a Padres' farm team recently beat a Sox farm team 30-0.

The scrub/ace matchups on Saturday seemed almost collusive - as though Bobby Cox and Tito Francona got together for drinks on Friday night and decided to just concede a doubleheader split. The fact that the Sox won today was a gift. Hudson has been the best pitcher in the NL thus far this season, and rather than matching him up against their best (healthy) pitcher, Tim Wakefield, whose turn in the rotation was up, they went with Gabbard.

The rationale is that they wanted to save Wake for the Yankees' series. Based on W-L record, the Braves are the better team, so it seems disrespectul to me that Boston didn't want to waste Wake against him.

To round this post out, I'll touch on the "other" games the Sox have to play this week.

The Red Sox are going to Texas, where they'll have to play the seemingly incompetent Rangers.

This series reeks of a reverse lock. The Sox haven't lost more than 2 games in a row this season, and other than Sammy Sosa's completely uninspiring drive for HR #600, there's no reason to pay attention to the Rangers at all. I won't even bother with matchups on either side of the ball - I just smell a Rangers' sweep.

On a final note, I will crow about the Red Sox being the first team to 30 wins this year. With their .698 winning percentage, they are on pace for 113 wins. I don't think this is sustainable, but it's nice to see.

And yes, I know that 113 wins would still be one less than the Yankees in '98.