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

How encouraging!

I'm gonna tweet something in Spanish to Ivan Nova saying as much.

Okay, done. Yeah, that's right. Before I switched to Latin classes, I was a Spanish estudiante.

I can't wait til there's a Roman gladiator-turned-MLBer, and then I'm going to have the best time ever tweeting with him.

(Sentence I never thought I'd say.)

So the Yankees won today, and as of now the O's are losing. Which means the game will go into 13 innings, and they'll end up winning with a grand slame in the top of the 9th or something. Shame on you, Baltimore, for hitting the ball so hard.

I'm going to pour another glass of wine and enjoy this time in first place while we can. (Yeah, now that Emily Dickinson poem of which I'm so enamored is making more sense to everyone, no? We WERE in first place. For a very long time, and by a very large margin. But I don't think we fully appreciated it. We dwelt in it every day without suspecting our abode until the O's drove it away.)

There aren't a whole lot of things in this world more heartbreaking than realizing you should have appreciated something more when you had it.

Alright, back to today's game.

In addition to Nova's breathtaking performance, the bats weren't too shabby either. Back to back dings from Grandy and Nunez. Grandy has hit homeruns in almost all of the games he's played in the last week.

Similarly, Nunez has probably cost the Yankees run in almost all of the games he's played in.

As one of the idiot Fox announcers noted idiotically, "the Yankees are happy to have him, since he'll bring in more runs than he lets up."

In no business or arena of life is this ever a real sentiment. I'm trying to think of someone who loses business but brings in business to negate it. I don't think I've ever met someone like this, and this is likely due to the fact that someone like this exists and/or is employed long enough for his/her existence to be noted.

So, yeah, good for Nunez for "making up for" the runs he's cost the Yankees this season. I don't know how many, if any, of those runs have cost us the game, but then again, there aren't very many, if any, plays that ever really cost a team the game, on account of the fact 9 innings are playing. With 9 players. One of the great things about baseball is that one player can be lionized for WINNING the game, but only cynics and naysayers will subscribe to the idea of one person being able to LOSE the game.

The back to back, belly to belly if you prefer, longballs put the Yankees up 3-0 (yup, check) and Jeter's ribbie single in the 4th made it 4-0.

Then we arrived at the portion of the program when our opponents come back to score runs and make us crazy(ier).

Longoria homered, 4-1, then a few innings later a 2-run single put the Devil Rays within 1.

And around Yankee Universe, a collective "Oh God, don't do this to me" was uttered nearly simultaneously. (I don't know why I just wrote "nearly. It's an imaginary situation, you'd think I could go all out with the imagery.)

Joba was the pitcher behind the 2-run single, but that's ok, because I think he did so well the last few games that I will give him what is known as "latitude."

R-So made everyone nervous because he put some runners on, and I'm watching the replays later on with my aunt, and she is the same person as my mom, because she does that whole horrified gasping thing, coupled with dramatic narration. I love my family.

He manages to escape from the inning and wildly untuck his shirt. (You know what I'm wondering? In situations where he DOESN'T get the save--not that there are a lot of them, knock on wood--what is it like for him in the locker room later on when he's actually untucking his shirt for undressing purposes? Is it kind of awkward and depressing? Is it like getting left at the altar and then seeing your honeymoon tickets? Is he looking at his waistline thinking, "this wasn't supposed to be this way"?)

BJ Upton didn't have a banner day, as he misplayed a ball in center (thank God Cano remembered to hit that far), and then he screwed up on the very next play, by bobbling the ball. It's about time that punk did something other than be a bright young star with a promising future.

Same goes for James Shields. Although he's not young (by MLB standards, anyway). Big Game Shields. It's funny how he got that nickname since how many BIG GAMES has he even had the opportunity to pitch in? No one respects the concept of sample sizes anymore. Now I sound as old as Big Game Shields.

The REAL Big Game Grandmaster is returning on Tuesday, so Fox should be ashamed of themselves for even calling anyone Big Game whatever, when Pettitte still is an active MLB player. I hope he is as good off the DL as Nova was. Also, I remember Fatso's first start off the DL was similarly magnificent.

Alright, don't judge me for saying this, but it is the best analogy I can think of: when I go a long time without straightening my hair, the first time I straighten it always makes my hair particularly shiny and straight. Then the subsequent straightening endeavors are not quite as favorable, kind of like Tubbo.com's starts since then have left everyone's hair kind of dry and frizzy.

I'm done with this analogy, forgive me.

Top of the 6th and the O's are still down, but like I said, we won't see them come out til it's a 1-run game in extra innings. May as well go join my neighbors at a bar to watch the rest of college football?

Til tomorrow...