NEW YORK -- The Yankees looked like the team with hunger at The Stadium last night. Fighting for their AL East life, and maybe some jobs, the Yanks beat the Red Sox, 6-2, in Game 1 of a suddenly "crucial" spring series with their blood rivals from Boston.
"It was a big game for us," said beleaguered manager Joe Torre. "A huge game. Two in a row. We haven't done that for a while. It's not something that we usually trumpet, but we haven't done it much."
It may not matter. Atlanta Braves ace John Smoltz says it's over, and a lot of Red Sox fans are thinking the same thing. It's May 22 and the Sox have shredded the competition in the American League East. Only four other teams in major league history have held a 10 1/2-game lead 43 games into the season (the Sox lead is now down to 9 1/2). One of them was the 2001 Seattle Mariners, who won 116 games.
When the Braves were at Fenway over the weekend, veteran Smoltz took a look at the Sox roster and the AL East standings and said, "I don't think they can be caught."
He's probably right.
Yankee zealots are citing 1978 as a reason to believe. But that's a stretch. The 1978 Red Sox did not have the pitching we're seeing at Fenway this year. And the 2007 Yankees bear little resemblance to the blood-and-thunder rogues who populated the '78 New York roster.
If this really were like 1978, George Steinbrenner would be firing coaches right and left. The Boss would be consulting with his "baseball people" and Brian Cashman would be buying calzones with Costanza. Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra would be summoned for ceremonial first pitches and Frank Sinatra Jr. would be trotted out for a live version of "New York, New York." Dave Winfield might even be brought back. The Yanks could use "Mr. May" right about now.
Many of these Yankees were around when New York vaulted over the Sox last August -- completing the infamous five-game Boston massacre. And we must remember that the Yankees have finished ahead of the Red Sox 11 years in a row. But at this hour the Pinstripes look like a bunch with plenty of doubt and not enough pitching. They went into this series knowing that a Boston sweep would bury them in the eyes of everyone other than John Sterling and the Hendricks Brothers.
"Regardless of who we're playing, we need to play well," said Yankees captain Derek Jeter. "But we can't keep saying, 'It's early, it's early, it's early.' "
