As is a rite of Spring every year, the Yankees and Red Sox are readying for their first regular season series. They’re tight in the standings and the Yankees will be sending 2 rookies to the mound against the Red Sox vaunted 1,2,3 starters. Luckily, super-Yankee Andy Pettitte will kick things off against super-Blogger Curt Schilling on Friday night. With the season going as it is, there’s no one I’d rather have set the tone for us than Andy. My fear is that he pitches well enough to lose the game 2-1 and we squander what will be our best start of the weekend, which can be demoralizing.
This week the Yankees were entering a 6 game stretch against the clubbing Indians (led the league in OBP) and Red Sox with only 20% of their starting rotation in tact. By winning the first 2 games of the Cleveland series, the Yankees have assured that this week will not be a disaster, no matter what happens in Boston this weekend (a win in the series finale today would be great). That being said, I think we’ll take 1 of 3 and get our big guns – Mussina, Wang and Matsui – back next week and have them when this Home/Away series comes back to the Bronx.
Onto the predictions!
Pettitte vs. Schilling
Sox win 3-2
Beckett vs. Karstens
Yanks win 8-3
Wright vs. Dice-K
Sox win
ps: How many times over the past 3-4 years has Manny come into a series with the Yanks ice cold and used that series to get his season back in gear. The answer? Too many. Here’s a call that he does it again. The other big story of the weekend will be whether or not A-Rod keeps up his torrid hitting against the Sox (i.e. when it matters). I’ll put 5 down on Manny briefly borrowing the mojo for the weekend only to return it to A-Rod on his way to Tampa on Monday.
