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

May 4 through May 6

It's hard to write about baseball when everything is so upside down. And by everything, I mean that I still haven't fully gotten past the Mo thing. Has anyone, really? I went out last night and saw the lion's share of my friends, all at the same place to celebrate the end of a different era: Kevin's last night working at Dorrian's.

A 7-year span hallmarked by highs and lows, all culiminating in last night, and the first thing anyone said to me when I saw him was, "I guess we should probably talk about Mo."

What is there to say really? It was a crazy weekend, and I don't think it was a coincidence that Kevin's last night at D's fell on the same day as a full moon. Not just any full moon, but the "fullest" in the history.

(PS, this is a little too similar to the idea of playing 100% vs 110%. By definition, doesn't "full" mean "at greatest possible capacity"? Then how can there be something that means more than that? It would suggest that all the other "full moons" weren't, in fact, full at all, but rather, close to being full. Again, why is this not confusing to any of the moon-naming-people? Their whole livelihood is based on moon stuff, and they still can't get this right? Like a snapper screwing up the snap.)

So the really full moon was out last night, and so were all the crazies. The Yankees lost terribly to the Royals--good grief--as the Rangers fell by one goal to the Caps, bringing the series to an even 2-2, and while some horse called "I'll Have Another" wins the Derby.

(Conversation last night: Me: "So was the derby winner the favorite or what. I didn't bet or even watch it this year." Ball: "Yeah, I've heard his name being thrown out a lot, so I'm guessing it was kind of the favorite." Me: "I thought the winning horse's name was I'll Have Another." Ball: "Yeah." Me: "If you're just basing this on how many times you've heard the phrase "I'll have another," then it's very possible he's not the favorite.")

The Knicks won I think, but honestly if I was a Knicks fan (or even a basketball fan), I don't know how much more of this I could take. To be invested in this series means that you have to hope for the Knicks to win 3 games in a row, after barely eeking out their first win in ELEVEN YEARS. By 2 points. Against a team that's infinitely better than them.

I guess stranger things have happened. Not a lot, but I guess technically stranger things have happened.

As for the Yankees, well they're just getting by. Not in a scraping together wins kind of a way, but in  a taking it one day at a time, kind of way. I think all future planning has gone out the window, in response to the "Mo Thing." You can't plan for everything. And when something like this happens, it makes you think you can't plan for ANYTHING.

In my junior year of college, my roommate had gone out and met a dude at a bar ("the" bar, as it were, since there was only 1 bar in my college town). And she liked him a lot, and he gave her his number and said to call.

I swear to God, I don't know how guys do this all the time, because when the tables were turned and the onus was on the chick to call the dude, we're paralyzed.

So all the roommates assembled in the living room and made an elaborate algorithm to map out the conversation. What to do if he says this, what to do if the conversation goes this way, etc. It was detailed and perfect, and she was all ready to make the call:

"Hi, is Matt there?...Oh, um, I don't know, actually...Bye."

We looked at her baffled. She explained:

"Whoever picked up said, 'Which Matt?' There are 2 Matts that live in that household."

Granted, she could've fielded the unexpected query a little differently than just hanging up, but the point is that we think we can plan for everything, and no matter what, without fail, the one thing we DIDN'T plan for, is what will happen. And you can try to plan for the Thing You Didn't Plan For, but you can't, because by design, it's unplanned for, obviously.

So the Yankees are playing like they've come to this conclusion.

After losing 3 straight, they came back on Friday and bested the Royals 6-2. Thank God. I watched this game with my company softball team, until I realized that it was indeed a 2-2 game and that if the Yanks end up falling to KC, I wasn't sure I wanted my coworkers seeing the fallout from this, in terms of my reaction. Better to safely make my way home.

(That last sentence, by the way, is a sentiment that the Yanks seem to be demonstrating somewhat of an aversion to, lately.)

The runners in scoring position thing. That's not too stellar. It's irritating and frustrating beyond the telling of it when I come back from the bathroom or something, expecting to see the game busted open--how could it not, with a runner on third and only 1 out??--and instead we're well into the 2nd half of the inning.

Fortunately the Yankees patched together 4 runs in the later innings and got the W, making my wildly superstitious self sure of the fact that I can no longer watch games with my softball team. Or rather, that I can only do EXACTLY what I did on Friday which was take in the first half of the game with them, then bolt. I'm a lot of fun in a social capacity.

Kuroda loses the game on Saturday, and KC manager acts like this was the watershed moment for his team. Ned Yost's name, for the record, is one of those names that looks less like a proper noun and more like a scrabble rack. He's all super excited about the BLOWOUT 5 runs the Royals put up against the Yanks on Saturday:

"We're getting back to playing our style of baseball now. We had that little rough patch and we're starting to swing the bats a little better now."

The Royals have a "style of baseball"? That "little rough patch"? I'm very curious to know what this little rough patch that he speaks of entails. At first blush, it would appear he's referring to the last decade, and if that's the case, then awesome. If he's talking about the season, then still kind of awesome, because I'm struggling to figure out what kind of "rough patch" of any scope, could be mollified by a 5-1 win.

Whatever it was, I think it was neutralized by the 10-4 loss KC suffered today when Cano's grand slam powered the Yanks to break even in the series.

Also, does this headline not make sense to anyone else?

Subject: Cano's grand slam. Objec: Yankees' rout. Where my verb at?

That's not really important though, not as important as the fact that Hughes got a win, Arod also went deep (3-run shot), and Nick Swisher returns in one of those PHEW-he-doesnt-need-a-big-swing-of-DL-recovery-time moments, to blast a solo shot. I'm more than a little impressed by Swish this season. Married life becomes him, apparently.

Girardi was really excited to see this kind of production from the middle of the order, for some reason. It's like being really excited to learn that your nanny didn't kidnap your baby. Grandy and Ibanez chipped in some ribbies, because apparently they're like ATMs for ribbies. They can't always give you enough, but they're generally good to help out when you're in a pinch.

The Royals were moderately useless against Hughes, who managed to go his SECOND game all season where he kept it up under 4 runs. Geez, Phil. Pull it together. Billy Butler, Humberto Quintero, Alex Gordon, and Jarrod Dyson all got some run-scoring hits for KC, but not enough (obviously.) All those names sound like classmates of Ramona Quimby, age 8, except for Humberto who for some reason hasn't marketed his own breed of tango music.

Apparently, there ARE different ways to tango, as O'Brien and I learned when this was the first search result for googling "tango."

So, it was a good day for the Yankees but mainly because they won, and not because they're turning the corner of their rough patch. I think I'd like to see a little more than an offensive blow-out against Hochevar before I make some kind of Ned Yost-esque assessment.

But hey, they won. Which is what they are supposed to do. And they hit the ball well. And they were 4-11 with RISP.

And you know what IS something I can take from this? The similarities to 2009. If we do everything exactly like it was done 3 years ago, then everything will be fine.

It's just hard to keep a straight head when the Orioles are in first place. Must be the fullest mooon BS.

It's also hard to keep a straight face when the Socks lose the O's in 17 innings to give 1B Chris Davis the win.

I mean, at least the Yanks aren't going hitless against position players. Geez, Socks.

Monday's an off day, then it's 6 games at home (TB and Seattle). I think they'll win all 6.