"It's great to be young and a Yankee."

I blame myself. I ate fro-yo and Cheez-Its, worked til 3;30am, and skipped out on physical therapy. All the things I said I couldn't do if I wanted to Yanks to shape up.

I missed the whole game due to another murderous day at work, but luckily for me, my mom has graciously taken over the role of Kris's Biggest Alarmist Fan Who Proclaims the Season Done Within the First Month and Declares Games Lost Within the First 3 Innings.

But when she called at 10:30 last night, I had the standard unnerved reaction that anyone has whose parents are of the not-staying-awake-past-9:00 ilk. No one died, thankfully. Though her shrill distress belied the urgency of the situation:

"KRISTEN, WHERE ARE YOU."
"Work! What is going one?? What's wrong!"
"Kristen, you have GOT to rename your cat. I'm not kidding."
"Is this why you called?"
"Mo's done. Dead."
"I don't know what to tell you, I'm not watching the game, I can't really talk. Mo's fine. He's allowed to have a bad game."
"Kristen, he is NOT fine. It's not okay!"

This is what I'm up against. She did the same thing when we got swept in Boston and I explained how I was trying to see the positive and how it'll be ok.

"Are you crazy?! It was horrible! It was absolutely atrocious, for them to give up that kind of lead...and, Oh God, look at them!"

My dad on the other hand will be watching a 7-0 game and call to say, "Hey, I told you this game is a rerun, right? I've already seen it, they come back in the 6th and win 10-8. Just didn't want you worrying about it." I love when he does this. LOVE it. He says it with such ease and conviction that I'm starting to think that there's a chance he might actually think it's a rerun.

I normally don't really like to make evaluations of players/teams based on box scores and stats, but, even without seeing them, the Rays look good. Carl Crawford, my favorite fantasy player since my first year of playing, is a beast. My sister feels like she has a staked claim in A-Rod every year (to the point where she thinks a rule has been broken if someone gets a pick before her and grabs him), and I'm close to that with Crawford. I pick him up way earlier than he should be. Maybe I just like him because every year he's the only source of my SBs. (Well, Posada gave me one this year.)

Longoria--also on my team--is another lunatic. Where are these numbers coming from?? Is he that good? No one can keep this up. He's just stunningly productive, and I don't doubt that's got the talent, but this is just remarkably arresting.

But the reason they won't be last year's WS contenders? That's their team right there. They don't look like they're running on that 'intangible' team chemistry this year. They don't look like the 96 Yanks anymore. They look like the 2007 Mets. Probably one of the best collections of players in the league, but something's missing. Their pitching isn't bad, but it's not strong enough. (Strong enough to sweep us, I guess, but semantics.)

But as my dad said, "The Yankees aren't losing so much as the other teams are winning."

Maybe I just speak my Dad's language, but I know exactly what he means. Where are our faults? Nothing is at the heart of the losing. You can't blame slumps or pitching..maybe the bullpen, but I don't know whose bullpen IS terrifying these days. Especially with the way the team's been hitting.

I don't know, I'm just happy it's the weekend and I'll be able to see the boys play again and not be huddled in front of a computer, hearing the sporadic groan or cheer from the office building crew who pop in my office sometimes when I'm working late to scream some incomprehensible obscentiy about the game.

And most of all, I'm happy A-Rod is back. The first game against O's this weekend has the same pitching matchup at the first day of the 2009 season. This is the game the Yankees turn it around.

I don't care what my mom says. I got a good feeling about this.