Playoff baseball in April?

It's amazing how quickly utter panic can turn to utter confidence. With the Yankee's loss in game one of the season to the Red Sox, I, along with millions of other Yankee's fans, was worried that the Yankees weren't going to be able to match their magical World Series winning season, and possibly not even win the AL East. Just two games later though, all that concern is gone, and has been replaced by a winning feeling. The bullpen has pitched great the last two games, after that rough first game, and even Chan Ho Park pitched three scoreless innings yesterday. Curtis Granderson hit a very clutch home run in the 10th last night which proved to be the winning run and Andy Pettitte looked like he was 25 years young. The season is only three games old, but winning any series against the Red Sox is cause to celebrate, and I'm feeling good about the Yankees.

The three games in Boston were as intense as the opening three games of a season could possibly be. It felt like the playoffs even though the playoffs don't start for seven months. I don't think the Yankees and the Red Sox can play a normal game and that's why it's the best rivalry in sports. Every game in the series was decided by two runs, they all took almost four hours to play, and one went into extra innings. Every single Yankees vs. Sox game is highly dramatic and perpetually thrilling.

I'm a little worried about Mark Teixera who went 0-9 with three walks in the series, but he's a notoriously slow starter and I'm sure he'll be fine. It's great to see David Ortiz so ineffective as he seems to be a shell of his former self. He used to be one of the most feared hitters in all of baseball, but he has been reduced to a guy pitchers actually want to face. Overall, I was not to impressed with the Red Sox lineup and even though they put up nine runs in the first game, I think they're going to struggle scoring runs this season. The Red Sox are gonna have to rely on their pitching to win games, and yesterday the Yankees proved that they can win pitching duels as well as slugfests. It's gonna be a good season.