Feh.

I have to admit to being very excited about Joba's first start tonight. It is the beginning of a new era for young Yankee pitchers with Joba, Hughes, and Kennedy being groomed to anchor in the starting rotation, the future looks very bright. I wish I could see the game.

and now we enter the media maelstrom that is joba starting his first ml game, lets second guess everything no matter what happens.

I hope Po coming back will give the team a lil kick - like arod's return did, cept hopefully this one will be long term.

I hate games like that, where the Yankees get a ton of hits but leave most of the runners on base. It is like slow torture. It just had that "uh oh" feel to it, when Livan would wiggle out of yet another jam. I wonder if this is what teams felt like when up against El Duque.

Last night's loss was a brutal one because it revealed the Yankees flaws, which cover every facet of the game. They ran the bases poorly, fielded poorly, hit poorly with men in scoring position, failed to get a quality start and then had the bullpen cough it up.

The calendar has turned to June, but the Yankees still haven't started to play well. If not for Seattle, you'd be able to say that this team has not played well over more than a 1 or 2 game stretch all season. It is hard to see how everything is just going to fall into place.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, tonight's game has taken on a very different feeling. Instead of the Yankees playing the Jays, the real story is the debut of Joba. That's kind of the feel you get with team's that aren't really contenders...you focus on the subplots first and the game second. With IPK having pitched so poorly and Hughes racked by injuries so early in his career, the mantle of Generation Trey now falls to Joba. If, for whatever reason, he should falter in the rotation, thoughts will immediately go back to Generation K and the lost potential of the Mets' trio of Pulsipher, Wilson and Izzy. The failure of that group really set the Mets back for several seasons, so a lot is riding on Joba's progress.

8 It's still early; I wouldn't rule out Ortiz returning.

Dice-K's injury doesn't sound THAT serious, and the eventual return of Schilling will help the BoSox, but the loss of Ortiz just can't be made up (not even by Barry Lamar Bonds). I'm reading that Ortiz will most likely be out at least a month, and if surgery is required, will be gone for the rest of the year. The surgery would be similar in scope to Nomar's wrist surgery a few years ago (and Nomar's power went with it).

If the Yanks don't make it (and count me in as one of those that think they won't), then I would LOVE to see a Rays/Cubs World Series

(that might be the only way you see a sellout crowd in Tropicana Field!) :-)

11 It doesn't sound serious yet, but I think that's because Boston has been so tight liped about it. Dice K is notorious for the workload he had in Japan, so when the words MRI and shoulder surface, I think red flags go up. I also don't think Schilling is going to be a factor this season.

I am also in the boat of the if the Yankees don't make it, I would love to see the Rays win it. Of course, that would mean they are for real and likely to threaten the Yankees for time to come. Also, I really have no idea whom to root for in this series. Both the Sox and Rays are likely to vie for both the division and the WC, so it could be a losing proposition altogether. Looking up at the Rays makes me a little dizzy, but I have a feeling it's something we'd better get used to.

true .... and they've played 11 more home games than road games to this point ...

13 ,15 FWIW, the 2004 Yanks outperformed their pythag record by 12 games. The Rays are 3 over, so I wouldn't be too concerned about it yet.

21-5 at home
14-20 on road

ergo 8 more games at home than on road rest of year, and if they play anywhere near their pace at home ....

Yes, he has ace potential. But he has a long way to go before we can annoint him as the rotaion's saviour.

I also have to say I would NOT dismiss the Jays this year. They were wretched for 2 weeks and more and were close to firing manager and GM, so they are easy to overlook, but they have astonishingly good pitching, injured players returning, and Rios, a maybe stud, really has to be better than he has been.

What this actually means, I don''t know, but one thing seems clear enough: it will be hard for anyone to put together a major streak in the AL East, and it may stay in play a long time.

Last night's loss was, as everyone says, painful. It was indeed one of those where we had about 4 chances to blow it open and didn't. It is also another of the byproducts of Joba as a starter that we discussed ... we are into 'who will deliver and who will blow it' among the candidates for 7th/8th inning and most playoff teams need to have pretty reliable bridges to their closers.

I nominate Ohlendorf, since he seems to be effective for an inning.