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

Last night's 13-6 win was huge for the Yankees on about a million levels. Watching them butcher the Red Sox is an unassailable joy, one that I haven't been able to experience for over a year. But as Game 2 approaches, my delirium is being replaced with more practical anxiety. Beating Bowser in the Level 1castle is cake. But it just gets harder from there, and Josh Beckett (13-4, 3.27) is a bit more challenging a foe.

His tragically edgy rancor will be up against NY's answer to pitching beliigerence, in the form of A.J. Burnett, (10-5, 3.89) who needs to follow up his worst season outing with his best one when he faces his former Marlins teammate. Beckett is one of the league's only aces that the Yankees can't seem to knock around, so it's on Burnett tonight to keep a potentially silent lineup still in the game. It'd be nice if he could do something about the rampant walks that characterized last night's game, too. (18 between the 2 teams??)

It's getting harder and harder to find a hole in the Yanks' game--even their bullpen is cleaning up. Boston's bats are inconsistent lately, and have been mostly taking a page from the Robinson Cano book, "RBIs: Friend or Foe?" Forget about David Ortiz, who makes A-Rod look like a paragon of stoicism in terms of being rattled by boos. I hope the Bronx carves him up again tonight. Almost as much as I hope we chase Beckett early.

(As a follow up to yesterday's game thread about the weird number coincidences: the Yankees had 18 hits with the first score coming off #18. The starter of Game 109 is #19. Based on this, I bet Alfredo Aceves features prominently at some point.)