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

Hand over Fist(er) tonight, Yanks...

(Game preview at the Voice.) ((sorry, their website's been under maintenance all day and links keep breaking))

What are the prerequisites for getting “he’s human after all” exemptions? Because there are a lot of stars and legends out there…but only certain people get this said about them with some degree of frequency. I think everybody should only get one.

Like, from birth. You don’t assume anyone (or anything) is human until he/she/it does something that warrants the “ahh, turns out he IS human” eureka moment. But you can’t waste it. I mean, save it for something that removes all shadow of doubt whether or not they’re human. And once you experience this watershed moment, that’s it. You’re done with the mock shock over his human status.

Mo doesn’t blow many saves. Almost never. But it happens. Unless you started watching baseball 2 months ago, you already know Mo’s indeed a homosapien. The only people who are pronounced human more than Mariano Rivera are Obama and Tiger Woods. Google “he’s human” and see how decidedly mortal Woods is. Of course, there are other people like Lance Armstrong and Breckin Meyer who have taken it upon themselves to preemptively assert it. Some might call this the woman doth protest too much.

(I don’t know why, but the Armstrong headline cracked me up. It sounds like he confessed to some dastardly crime or something.)

That said, the whole lot of human Yankees try to beat the Mariners again, and once again we’re looking at a 10:10 start time. How hard would be it to get the games moved up to 1:00 over there? I mean, wouldn’t that make more sense than pushing their times 3 hours ahead. If you can wake up at 10am to watch Sunday Football, 1pm should be no problem.

Tonight they got Tubbo.com (17-7, 3.42) trying to be the first AL-er with 18 wins and join Adam Wainwright as the only arms in the league with that many. In his last start, he got the W, but recorded only 1 K, which I maintain he did out of spite, punishing me for forgetting to start him in fantasy earlier in the week (where he naturally put 10Ks in the book). We’re even now, Round Boy. I’ve already set my roster for today and you got the nod. Deal.

He goes up against Doug Fister (2-2, 3.53 ERA), who effectively demonstrates my rampant immaturity every time he starts since I can’t hear this without giggling. I learned today that he was originally drafted out of high school by the Yankees, but went to college instead. He’s thinking, Dammit there goes my chance to not have my name splayed across my backside. Everyone else is thinking, Dammit there goes our chance to have him start next to Wang in the rotation.

Sabathia’s won the last 7 decisions, and the Yanks have won the last 9 starts of his. After his 1K game, he said, “I was just trying to do whatever I could to get outs and get the team back in the dugout." The evidence is really mounting for my theory that he makes quick work of a whole chicken between innings. Especially since he seems to constantly be wiping his hands on his stomach as if to clear off the grease. Whatever works, CC.

His BP outing start at Safeco ended as a 11-1 romp over the M’s. It’s interesting, the guy needs the least amount of run support and gets the most. I wouldn’t mind seeing the Yanks return to August form, where every game was like watching a magical volcanic eruption of runs. I could see it happening tonight. Fister has been pitching well, but really for no discernible reason. From where I’m sitting, he keeps the ball up too much and when he tried to keep it low, he lost control. (This is also taken from a limited sample size of games, I’ve seen him pitch in. But there's really just not a whole lot of pitches in his arsenal.)

Like Whitey Ford says, “It takes 110 pitches to win a game. 1 pitch to lose it.”

The Yankees need to be more patient at the plate tonight than they were last night, particularly with Fister’s susceptibility to lost control. Thank God Jorge’s back soon. Because you know Mo didn’t lose that game last night. The catcher who called that pitch did.

Their AL lead is 6, their magic number 10. Andy’s ready to pitch again. (In the first of the Anaheim series. Out of the frying pan…) And because the Yankees have some kind of weird Pitcher Complexity fetish, Ian Kennedy may or may not be thrown in the rotation.

Yes, I think now is the perfect time to have a guy fresh off the DL to come back and start pitching for us. And by that, I mean I’m pretty sure I think this makes about as much sense as adding Jaime Lee Curtis to the bullpen. Until David Robertson’s back, of course.