On Deck (Game 43): Sox @ Yanks (Part 7)

Here we go again. Every Red Sox series is do or die, every single time we watch the replays of the 2003 and 2004 ALCS (I’m partial to the replay above), every time we convince ourselves that something magical is going to happen when the Yankees take on the Boston Red Sox. Usually, we aren’t disappointed.

Tonight, Chien-Ming Wang will look to get the Yankee ship sailing in the right direction against the guy that gave up the walk-off to Aaron Boone in the video clip above.

In a nutshell: Wakefield is coming off his worst start of the year when the Tigers knocked him around at Fenway. The Yankee bats have shown definite signs of life in the past two games, scoring 7 and 6 runs respectively. Honestly, I hate opening a series against Wakefield, because if he’s on, that insipid knuckle ball could have a hangover effect on the Yankee bats. Sometimes it takes a day or two to get your timing back.

The Yankees are currently 10.5 games behind the Sox. The teams will meet six times in the next two weeks, so make or break isn’t exactly an exaggeration, even at this early point of the season.

Keys to the game: Be patient and swing at strikes. The Yanks need to make Wakefield throw the knuckler for strikes, and punish him whenever he’s forced to throw a fastball.

Sox blog-of-the-day: Yanksfan vs. Soxfan