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

So here we are again. In the elusive 1st place of the AL East, after beating the O's 6-4 (no more 2-1 streak, of course right after I bought $10 of 321 in Pick 3 Lotto.), and after the Sux fell to the Rangers again. With Beckett on the mound. Who took the loss despite 7K's. Your lineup shoulda taken that one, kid. Weak sauce from the big bad Sux toinight. I mean, just ask John Henry, who's acting like a 12-year old in the early 90's discovering AOL teen chat rooms.

Well, I didn't find the games so frustrating, John.

But since the Yankees got a song yesterday commemorating their ascent to the top, it's only fair the Sux should get one for graciously stepping down a rung. I'm assuming it was a team gift for CC, who celebrated his birthday on Tuesday and had hefty plans to eat all the cake on the eastern seaboard. There's no way the Sux could have fit in the 1st place spot, anyway.

Thanks for coming out, Boston:





Sergio Mitre pitched ok. 4 runs isn't too bad, 8 hits is not too good. He's like Presto in the children's book about the magician who was just so-so. Looking for the bright spot (aside from the win obviously), I was definitely impressed by the pitches he threw for strikes. First game on the big league mound in 2 years, in the Bronx...could rattle a gargoyle.

But he seemed to throw his best when behind in the count. Maybe another pupil of the AJ Burnett School of Successful Pitching that Toys with Fans' Heart Rates.

"I know I can pitch here," Mitre said. "It's just a matter of staying healthy. That's been my biggest problem throughout my career."

Uh, really? That's your biggest problem? Sooo...not the getting caught with a banned substance thing, then. To be honest with you, Sergio, I'm surprised.

Cano hit a homerun, his first in the 18 games, which neatly coincided with the first game I've ever benched him. And despite the fact my bench today went 2/3, 3/4, and 2/5, I still managed to bat .514 on the day. (Game ball goes to Aybar for that one.)

Actually, upon closer look at Yahoo, I'm not really sure how anything that happened today is statistically possible.

• How are the Yankees in first when they haven't won a single game against their division rival?
  
• How did my team go 19/37 with the bench producing the way they did?
  
• How did Lannan pitch a complete game shut out with only 1 K?
  
• How does a team boasting Crawford, Bonifacio, Asdrubal, and Shin Soo Choo have a total of 1 Stolen Base in the last 2 days?
  
• Why is Cody Ross still on my team?
  
• Why is Cody Ransom still on the Yankees? (that's just a general non-fantasy related query)

In Yankee trends:

"The Yankees are a major league-best 43-22 since Rodriguez came off the disabled list May 8 following hip surgery."

It's tough to hurl insults at the guy now, huh.

The state of the Yankees looks good but not overpowering, kind of like our boy Sergio Presto. They're playing conservatively yet deliberately. Patient, economical, strategic. Kind of sounds more like something you'd read in The Wealth of Nations (or hear in the final seconds of the championship game in the original Mighty Ducks), but still. It's working for them. One game at a time.

It's a far cry from how they looked when they went on their last blazing streak, which was a little more akin to a dirty stayout who just got dumped and is let loose in the city. Presently, the Yanks are little more like my cat who doesn't really seem to have any overarching plan or idea about what he's doing, but still approaches everything with the utmost caution yet determination.

And for the record, I still think that sometime in the next 9 days, the Yankees might want to consider mixing in "pitcher acquistion" to this indiscernible game plan that's been working out for them so far. We don't need 5 ace starters. But just "pretty good" pitching is for sissies. Well, no, pretty good's ok for the bottom of the rotation. I'll take pretty good if some kind of spit-on-hands strength promise is made to be consistently pretty good instead of having outings that are as concrete as Magic Eye images.