I must be a jinx. The Yankees were flying high at the top of the division with a record of 20-5 when I purchased the right from MLB.com to watch the Yankees every day (a great deal by the way). Ever since, they have played like the Tigers. So I'm watching the Red Sox today on NESN and they are winning big against hated Toronto (If the Yankees don't win this thing--and it doesn't look like they will--the last team I want in there is the Blue Jays!). Somehow, the Red Sox blow up and the Blue Jays get a million dinks and it's 8-6!

I hear that the Yankees have gone up 7-1 on the Tigers and I figure I'll go to the computer to watch history and it's the bottom of the fifth. The first batter gets a hit and some guy from Aruba hits his first homerun of the year. No big deal. Now it's only 7-3. Then another single. No problem. Suddenly the Bad News Bears show up and take over for the Yankee infield and Jeter throws one away and then Soriano throws one away and before I can get a clear picture, it's 7-6. Okay, that was bad, but they can still win. I can still watch history.

Ziele then hits an opposite field homerun and Clemens is again up by two. He pitches a perfect sixth inning and waves his hat to the fans. Oh boy, it's time for the Yankee bullpen. I can't bear to watch after all and go downstairs and practice my karaoke (Yes, I can sing, "New York, New York"). I sing for a couple of hours and figure it should be safe to go upstairs and finish watching history.

Somehow it's the bottom of the tenth inning and it's a tie game 8-8! Oh man! What happened. I switch over to Yahoo to look at the box score and sure enough, Sterling Hitchcock, who has pitched well backing Clemens up in other wins this season blew the lead. Crap. It's over. Another chance wasted and still we go on waiting for history. I cannot believe that a bunch of pros can't raise the level of their game and get this done. Errors in the field and relief pitchers blowing the game...sheesh...if the team can't take the pressure of this type of situation, what are they going to do if they make the playoffs. This isn't the same team without O'Neal and Tino and those guys. This is a team that has no real backbone. The Flagrant Fan is steaming!


Taking a deep breath...at least I'm not a Diamondback fan. They get Hildenbrand to bolster their hitting attack and instead of sticking him at first, they release Matt Williams? What? Williams is the kind of hitter that can get hot and put ten over the fence in a hurry. He was fourth on the team in RBI and now they lose that production. You get a player like Hildenbrand to bolster your offense and then you release a guy with 378 career homeruns and end up losing more ground. I don't get it.


The Red Sox moving Johnny Damon to ninth in the order is a good move. Mueller is hot and his batting average is higher than Damon's OBP! But I don't agree with the Sox demoting Bruce Chen and keeping Rudy Seanez. For one thing, it would have been great for Kim to have Chen around for companionship and second, you can never have too many left arms on your team.

The Red Sox post game show is on in the background and it's sad when a pretty good player struggles. Again it's the no mercy thing. The fans are calling in and blasting Grady Little (who was a genius last week) for using Jeremy Giambi when he is struggling at .178. But I watched the game and Giambi looks great but has been unlucky. His first time up, he put the Blue Jays centerfielder on the warning track with a drive. He just didn't pull it enough. In the Red Sox big inning when they hit five doubles, it should have been six doubles. Giambi smoked one down the line but hit the bad and went right to Delgado for the out. That's bad luck.