Hardball Heaven

The fifth and final game in this disappointing Yanks-Sox series starts in about five minutes and the big question is: can they win one? If Joe Torre has anything to say about it, the Sox will salvage at least one. Check out this starting lineup for the Bombers:

LF Melky Cabrera
DH Derek Jeter
RF Bobby Abreu
3B Alex Rodriguez
2B Robinson Cano
1B Craig Wilson
CF Bernie Williams
C Sal Fasano
SS Nick Green
SP Cory Lidle

No Damon, no Giambi, no Posada. Imagine Tito's lineup if the Sox had won the first four in this one? Pesky at short, Haselman behind the plate, Nipper starting...

Come on guys. Let's take at least one friggin' game. We may have left you for dead but we're still following along because it's what we do around here. Absolute mental torture and we'd have nothing less. In fact, we pay huge gobs of money just to watch it whenever we can. This is our soap opera, damnit, and any good soap opera (not that I'd know) revolves around the ups and downs of human emotion. Or something like that.

Needless to say, we Sox fans are stuck on the down arrow right now, so in a tiny effort to be positive about this whole debacle - we can take some small solace in the fact that the Sox team that got waylaid by the Yankees in 1978 at least rallied to make it a battle till the bitter Bucky Dent end. Hey, I said 'small.'

The game right now is scoreless in the top of the 5th, as David Wells seems to be in one of his grooves. You go, Boomer. Unfortunately, Cory Lidle is matching him pitch for pitch. Manny has left the game for undisclosed reasons.