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

Well, here we are.

I think now would be an appropriate time to recall Churchill. Which would make it the 2nd time in a week I've done so, but this is okay because Churchill was a badass.

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in [the Bronx], we shall fight on the [infield] and the [outfield], we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our [legend], whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on [offense], we shall fight on [defense], we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight [against Boston]; we shall never surrender.

I would go with the "This was their finest hour" passage, but I think that beating one of the worst teams in baseball to stumble into the playoffs after once having a monstrous-size lead that they squandered away, thereby creating the drama of this series in the first place...well, I think the Yankees have had much finer hours.

So I'm hoping not for a "finest hour" but mostly just for a "not most pathetic hour." Dare to dream.

While Baltimore had a fairly uneventful win against the Red Socks at Camden, the Yankees had an uphill battle, thanks to Phil Hughes putting them in a 5-1 hole within seconds (5 innings. Semantics.)

The Jays were looking like their big deal offensive powerhouse of recent years. Like, the Bautista-on-fake-steroids-years. They were scoring in all sorts of ways. (I could make some analogy to a seasoned prostitute, but I won't because I'm too stressed out by all this to be whimsically inappropriate.)

Escobar puts them on the board early by doubling in a run. Lind gets a sac fly in the same inning. There's the 2-0 First Inning Score That Has Started Every Yankee Game of The Season.

Yanks answer in the 3rd when ZPack#2 goes yard against Henderson Alvarez (that's a funny name), making it 2-1 and making us all think this wasn't go to be too difficult a game to win. 2-1 is the same as 1-0.

1-0 games are easy to win. 1-0 games are those games when YES announces the Player of the Game in the 8th inning, when there is most likely going to be an even more important player yet to come in the 9th.

But it didn't stay a 2-1/1-0 game for long.

Lawrie homers to make it 4-1. That reallllly deflated me. Because at the same time, the Boston/Baltimore score is flashing on the screen, and it's 3-0. And the Yankees are looking at being a game behind 1st with only 3 games to play.

But then the 7th inning happened.

I know we all want to say how this is soooo like the Yankees, to rally when the chips are down. It's true, I DO want to say that. But let's call a spade a spade here. The Yankees rally was l.argely fueled by Toronto's newfound aversion to throwing the ball within 16 feet of the strike zone.

That's what started it all. A run-scoring wild pitch, and the game became 5-2.

And soon it became 5-3 (Sneach Sac Fly).

5-4 (Cano doubles in Jeter).

And then it's a tie game with yet another wild pitch that lets ARod dash towards home.

While I definitely felt a lot better about the game, I was waiting to pry my hands off my own neck until there was unrefutable proof that the Yankees' bullpen did not ruin the summer by blowing the game.

Girardi looked like he was going to continue doing that thing where he's like an out of control teen on a talk show who's prancing around on stage saying, "IDUN CAYER. I DO WUH I WAN. I LOOK GOOOOD." Instead, he's saying, "I DON'T CARE. I DO WHAT I WANT. I'LL OVERMANAGE MY PITCHERS." I swear he does this overmanaging thing wth the same defiant indignance as one of the 13 year olds who won't stop getting pregnant.

(Ok, so much for being too stressed to be whimsically inappropriate, I guess.)

HOWEVAH, Girardi wowed the world, by NOT pulling Boone Logan after 1 batter. GOOOOD for you, Joe. GOOOOOOD for you.

Also, I don't know where else to mention this, but somethingsomethingsomethingSNEACHIRO'S CATCH!




Yep. Oh, Sneach! Your sense of Sneach is only equalled by your sense of love!

Anyways. So Boone Logan pitches really well, and it just is very unsettling to know that when the season is almost on the line, I don't trust anyone.

When I look at my options of who I want pitching out of the pen, the only name I trust is Mariano Rivera. Even with a gimp knee.

(I'm purposefully NOT going to expound on what happened in the inning. Something about the bases being loaded with 0 outs and everyone wanting to chew on rat poison to put ourselves out of our misery.)

You know what I want to think about even less than that little 9th inning scare? The next few days. They're going to kick my ass so much that I may have to pony up and buy a new ass. 3 games against the Red Socks that determine the fate of the Yankees' season.

I...no. I cannot. Stop.

Despite the fact I gave all my office sufficient warning that I should not be "disturbed" this week, that I am not pleasant when playoffs are at stake, that my knee jerk reaction to pretty much any query is something like this...despite all this, the week just keeps getting more and more saturated with meetings.

So between that, baseball, and everything else going on, Ohyob's arrival on Friday will be like this.

Until then...don't poke the bear. Shit's about to get real.

(Hey, remember when the Yankees lost to the Orioles last month because the ump blew the call at first and we were all so mad because we were scared that ONE BLOWN CALL may end up having some significance if the Orioles are still contenders come playoff time, but we were ultimately like, "Nahhh. Grrr. Let's move on"? Yeah, me neither.)