On Deck (Game 52): Yanks-Sox Part X

Well, it's only June and Yankees and Sox will be meeting for the 10th time this season tonight. After this series, the teams won't see each other again until the end of August. My prediction: by the time the Yankees meet the Sox again, there will be a race in the A.L. East, Dice-K’s ERA will be 5.50+ (it’s currently 4.83) if he’s still in the majors.

For every bad break the Yankees have had this year, the Sox have had luck. For every under-performing Yankee, there’s been a Red Sox player who’s played over his head. The beauty of baseball is that things have a tendency to even out. These teams will part ways for almost three months after this series, they’ll go out and play the teaming masses of the American League, and an occasional inter-league opponent, and by the time they meet again, something will be on the line.

The Yankees can start the upward trend tonight. They lit up Tim Wakefield for 6 earned in 4 innings in New York (game 7 of the series), and Chien-Ming Wang completely adjusted his pitching patterns to keep the Sox bats off balance.

In a nutshell: Wang reversed his own trend against the Sox last time out. He needs to go deep in the game, and how about we get Mo his second save in as many games? 

Key to the game: Pressure. The Yankees need to maximize every base runner. You can run on Wakefield. That’s an understatement. Anyone can run on Wakefield. The Yanks should be stealing bases left and right tonight.

Sox/Yanks blog-of-the-game: Yanksfan vs. Soxsfan

Oddity: I’m surprised that the Boston fans haven’t started in with the “Y2K, Y2K, Y2K…” chants yet. On second thought, I think this was pretty much the intellectual pinnacle of Boston’s chanting skills.