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

CC GOES FOR WIN #20! Good luck, tubbo! You da man.

Where would this team be right now if we hadn't made the offseason acquisitions that we did?

Can we even begin to measure the value of players like Mark Teixeira, A.J. Burnett, and--my personal favorite--CC Sabathia?

Say what you will about the "Yankees buying their team" etc, but in my humble opinion, money was never better spent. (Well, with the possible exception of Daisuke Matsuzaka, of course.)

Tonight the CY Young contending bear of a southpaw (19-7, 3.21)takes the mound for the final time before he'll open Game 1 of the postseason next week. The past few games have featured hybrid lineups of young call-ups and regular starters, with the final score playing a secondary role to rest, pitching "practice," and overall game tune-up.

Not tonight, though. Girardi has asserted that they're playing for the win to give the big guy his 20th of the season, which would make it the first of Sabathia's career. The Rays send impressive rookie David Price (9-7, 4.60) to face the daunting Yank line-up that's posting a .299 BA in the last month. Price's stuff is straight up filthy--might not be a bad way to jolt the Yanks back into hardened drive in the last series of the season...

We're in the final stretch. Set the gearshifts to high gear.