"It's just a bunch of great guys. It's so much fun coming here to the locker room not only because we have the greatest locker room ever, you want to be around your friends. You want to be around your second family. I think that's really paying off for us."
Good guys, bad guys, loose guys, uptight guys, whatever they are, they make up the most expensive baseball team ever assembled. Manager Joe Girardi was accused of being uptight a year ago, in his first season at the helm, but according to Yankee players, he has lightened up a bit and become more of the player's manager Joe Torre was.
There was a light tit-for-tat between Girardi and Mariano Rivera when the future Hall of Famer blew a save against Tampa Bay Saturday. Rivera allowed four runs in a 9-7 loss and afterward questioned Girardi's strategy of walking Evan Longoria to pitch to B.J. Upton, who has never hit well against Rivera. This time Upton succeeded.
Girardi even admitted to the New York media Sunday - after Rivera saved that day's game by retiring Longoria - that Rivera was right after all.
Girardi has been somewhat concerned about Rivera. It's not being uptight so much as it is fearing that at some point the extraordinary closer might be feeling his age (39).
That aside, the Yankees have emerged from the gloomy early days of the season when there was every reason to call them a $200 million bust.
CC Sabathia was struggling. Mark Teixeira couldn't hit a softball. A.J. Burnett was just another overpaid guy. Alex Rodriguez was dodging reporters after his steroid admission and the juicy details of a book while trying to rehab a surgically repaired hip in Tampa. On top of all that, they had been embarrassed by the Red Sox in five straight games.
Now the Yankees return to Fenway in first place. So much for the $200 million bust. They're actually pretty good.
I threw out the phrase "smooth sailing" to a few Yankee players, but none of them bit. There could be more bumps along the way. If there's one area that needs attention, it's the bullpen.
