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

I was a little nervous I guess during the first few innings. I received an email from one of the leading members of the Boston Fans I Have A Hard Time Hating committee, who writes at 8:05pm, "Looks like a pitchers duel. Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins...good thing I'm keeping my mind limber with alcohol."

It DID look like a pitcher's duel, one that Beckett was dominating, striking out our lineup like it was going out of style.

Fortunately for us, it did go out of style shortly thereafter.

Beckett (1-1) struck out six and allowed one hit in the first three innings but ended up giving up nine runs in 5 1/3. He basically imploded, and was also basically incensing me to no end. My sister will disown me for using her as an analogy here, but here I go: It was kind of like this time 3 years ago when me and Laur went to this game, and there were 3 brontosaurus sized chicks sitting about 6 rows in front of us. Fat Red Sox fans= the WORST.

And we get into a "harmless" (initially) screaming match with them, and Lauren's telling them "don't eat me!" and "You're not allowed to bring cholesterol that big into the stadium! Anything that size needs to be checked across the street!" (A reference to the bag check at Stan's...)

Anyways, so obviously these beasts aren't taking anything lightly (literally), and they're getting increasingly furious. And Laur's getting annoyed at me for not joining in the fray. And I said, "WE'RE GETTING KILLED HERE. It's 11-4, we don't have any leverage to be cocky assholes right now." Laur's reply, "If we're gonna lose, we may as well have fun doing it."

And that's how Beckett pitched last night.

He had walked something like 7 batters by the 4th inning, and I don't know what was weirder: the fact that Francona was showing no signs of pulling him, or that the ump was showing no signs of issuing a warning.

No, you don't issue a warning if the pitcher is just wild, but c'mon, Blue. It's Boston-Yankees. You guys issue warnings if someone sneezes in an a contentious manner. Beckett was completely incapable of getting the ball over the plate and was insistent on pitching as inside as possible. And you know what makes me think none of this was just a matter of a little control issue? This:

Look at that smirk! The most annoying part was that everyone was giving him carte blanche to systematically knock out our entire batting order and a comped pass to go head hunting...all because it was bases loaded.

I watch enough criminal investigation shows to know that this is just what the perp WANTS us to think. And EVERYONE fell for it, except Leiter. At first everyone's all, "Well you know Beckett is obviously not intentionally hitting the batters because who would ever do that with bases loaded when it's only a 3-run game? He's just having control problems is all."

But crafty little Leiter saw through it. "You know, what kind of pitcher throws at batters with bases loaded? It just shows Beckett's lack of respect for the game and for his team. I mean, c'mon kid, you let up 3 or 4 runs and all of a sudden you're all pouty? Get over it and grow up."

YEAH, AL! YOU TELL HIM!

My dad (and I) HATE people like Beckett. A very specific ilk of losers, not unlike many guys you'll meet out on a weekend night. The ones who come in all arrogant, think they have the whole scene wrapped around their fingers, and then when a chick starts discernibly not being impressed by his whole schtick, he gets overwhelming annoying.

Like, instead of cutting his losses and leaving the bar with his tail between his legs or chalking it up to just an off night, he decides to raise the bar and harass the chick unrelentingly.

Psychologically speaking, this is to demonstrate that "What, you guys thought I was like actively making an EFFORT to score chicks? Are you serious? No way, I don't even care, I'm TRYING to piss her off. I mean, if I really wanted to hold court I could, but I don't even care about this shit."

Similarly, Beckett's smirking and throwing the game away because that way, it's like he wasn't "off," but rather all part of his master plan. Not exactly what this genius plan is, per se, other than one that calls to mind Kreese imparting some battle plan tips to Johnny.

So that was Beckett last night, another mess of a night.

He also drilled Jeter in the back in the six-run sixth, and, for good measure, knocked out his own catcher with a pitch that forced him out of the game with a left forearm contusion.

"I had an idea where (the ball) was going. It just wasn't going where I wanted it to go. When you try to overthrow like that, your delivery gets all messed up."

You know how I know he's lying? Because why people lie, they use the general "your" type of speech. "When you overthrow like that, your delivery gets all messed up." My delivery? I wasn't pitching, assclown. You were. Liars talk like that to divorce themselves from the lie. If he was telling the truth, he would have said, "When I try to overthrow like that, my delivery gets all messed up."

But that's not what happened. He didn't try to overthrow. He tried to inflate our already growing DL numbers.

I'm very sure this type of mentality is doing great things for the spirit and integrity of our great American pasttime. Nope.

Swish hit his 5th HR in 13 games, and once again, his fence clearing shot initially looked like a pop up. It's bizarre. I've thought this the last few times he's gone yard, it seems like he's getting under the ball but when the camera pans on it, that ball is showing no signs of touching ground.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he stares into space for a few seconds before every at bat. Maybe he's thinking, "that's where I'm aiming for, and that's where I'll hit it." Who knows.

(Speaking of inexplicable Yankee choices, my sister mumbles to no one in particular during a routine camera shot of the bullpen, "Why the hell does Joba always have on some sweatshirt that looks like he just bought it in the Yankee team store?" I almost fell off the couch. She nailed that one.)

So there you go. Hughes was brilliant, only letting up 2 runs, getting pulled after exactly 100 pitches (although I think they scored it as 101 pitches. But the last one was actually thrown by D-Rob. Who forgot to pitch well yet again, and who is clearly invoking the frustration of Eisland.)

The real loss of the game was Cano, who got hit in the knee so hard that you could here the thump from roughly 87 miles away. At one point, he raised his bat over his head and I was sure he about to whip it towards Beckett. He really should have.

Before the game started, I said that the 2nd basemen of this matchup would figure in significantly to the outcome. I guess Beckett knew that, too, and decided to neutralize the threat. Nick Johnson is also out, but when is he not, really? Something about a sore wrist. My sister said this is probably because his wrist muscles have atrophied from not swinging the bat since the season's started.

Finally, I'd like to go on record as stating that Jeremy Hermida is one of the ugliest players in the game. I'm not kidding. Laur says his beard situation makes him look like Mose, but I'd go a step further and say it looks like someone took a picture of Mose and just formatting it to fit on a vertical slide rather than a horizontal one.