The Morning After on TSE - 6.14.2007

Things are getting awfully interesting on the East Coast...

I'm well aware of the "East Coast Bias" that exists in all forms of media and sports-related media is certainly guilty as charged. But there's a reason that the Red Sox, Mets and Yankees get all the attention - they deserve it. I'd love to talk about the 3-way clusterfuck that was the AL West to my heart's content or about the shrine to mediocrity that is the NL Central. And Verlander's no-no the other night would make great blog fodder. But we're going to talk about the East here because that is wholly more important.

The best team in the bigs up and until this most recent round of interleague play has been the Boston Red Sox. They've had explosive offense, lights out pitching, startlingly good defense and the one-two punch of Fukijama (Hideki Okijama, but my name's better) and Jonathan Papelbon couldn't be more effective if Ali was throwing it. And then the Yankees came to town and beat Fukijama and Paps. Since that game (which was at Fenway Park) the Red Sox play has been more up and down than Paris Hilton's food in prison. Schilling throws a 8 2/3 no-no in a 1-0 win (how this offense scores 1 in a game is beyond me) and then plays his part in the 12-2 Schelling (see what I did there?) last night, again in Fenway. That's pretty much an outline for the last two weeks. And yet Manny (being Manny) seems oddly unfazed...

Meanwhile, the Yankees have surged to within 9 games of first with their 8th straight win. Their one-two punch of Abreu and Alex Rodriguez (I'm hoping that if I stop using the little nicknames he'll come back down to Earth) is as hot as ever. You almost know that A-Rod (here I go again) is going yard every other game. And Abreu has gone from a two-month slump to being the hottest hitter on his team, if not in the league. Two weeks ago, the lead in the East was over 12. At 8.5, it's getting pretty sweaty in Beantown.

Can they Yankees pull off the comeback? I doubt it. They're getting so many runs now that I could get a win starting for them, but that will eventually (I hope) die down and the mess that is their bullpen is going to rear its ugly face. But for now, it's interesting, if not completely relevant - bias or not.

Besides, the NBA Finals (which will get a post later) is between Cleveland and San Antonio. Nothing East Coast about those guys (though they certainly lack an iota of interesting considering how AWESOME this Finals has been...)