Half a game.

Boston is panicking. What has gone wrong in Boston?, the TV captions read. Are the Yankees going to run away with the AL east? Transplant that opening onto any of the previous baseball seasons back to the late 90's and you'd expect to see Boston 5 or 6 games back and faltering after the break. The O's would be, well the O's would probably be gazing up at that glass ceiling that has been the .500 mark for the last 8 years. Toronto would be in third or fourth and the D-Rays would be in last...them or the O's. The answer to that question would be maybe not run away with, but yes the Yankees will probably win the division. I mean who else was there to take it from them?

Thank the good Lord that this is 2005 and the Yankees are NOT going to run away with anything. Boston, while slightly disfunctional and annoyingly quirky, is a damn good team as are the Orioles with whom they share second place, both teams HALF A GAME behind New York. It's frustrating to see ESPN trot out the same Boston journalist on all three of their major daily shows, Around the Horn, PTI and Sportcenter to ask him "What's wrong with Boston?!"

Well...to start, Manny Ramirez is a lunatic, Johnny Damon is a caveman in all but the literal sense of the word, and Keith Foulke is gone (but that's probably a plus for them). But they are about to get Schilling back and Timlin can close for them when Schilling gets his starting slot back. Ok, now, "What's wrong with New York?" Everybody on the mound after Mussina and Randy for starters (hehe). Somehow I don't think Al Leiter, despite one good start is going to be a dominant force for them. Also, Bernie Williams, who used to be the only thing non Yankees fans could stomach about the team, in a word, sucks. Actually, I think I've always hated "Behnie" more than almost every other Yankee. This is because while Yankees supporters don't have much to say when you tell them that Jeter is a douchebag, because Jeter IS a douchebag, when we would boo Williams and occasionally root for him to get beaned in the ass with a pre-Yankee Randy Johnson fastball they would say, "But it's Behhnie! How could you hate Behhhnie??"

Easy. I look at his uniform and follow the first emotion that comes to me. I'm glad he can't cover a four square court much less center field.
Digressing I know...

The point of this whole thing is that it's only a half game. The AL east isn't that strong anymore so a 13-3 run will get you somewhere but they won't keep it up. Minus a trade deadline signing of Pujols or Dontrelle they will probably finish in second or third. Hopefully behind both Boston and Baltimore.

Half a game...