Game 8 - Yankees 2, ROYALS 5

Ouch. Not a good one. Like I keep saying, though, it's early. Phil Hughes got squeezed a little yesterday, but he still needs to have better control and fight through that stuff. I'm sure he will in the future. He is still just 21, remember. With the exception of Ohlendorf getting a little wild in the fifth, the bullpen once again looked good. The offense still isn't working, but I'll be charitable and chalk it up to the quick turnaround between playing at 7pm on Monday in the Bronx and then 4pm the next day in Kansas City.

As for the Jeter and Posada injuries, it looks like Jeets could be back in Fenway this weekend and Posada will get an MRI today. I'm not too worried about either. In fact, with Posada it could be good news. Molina is a more than serviceable backup and this could leave a little extra gas in the tank for Jorge at the end of the season. It looks like April could be a tough month, but as long as they can hover over .500, I think they should be fine.

Despite it being so damned early, the baseball landscape is interesting right now. Are the Tigers this bad? Are the Orioles and Cardinals actually good? The Rays and Royals look like teams on the come, though. I don't know that they'll do too much this year, but it appears that ownership for both teams has committed to putting a better product on the field. It'll be interesting to see where it takes them.

On another note, I don't want to hear about what a classy act it was for the Sox to bring Bill Buckner back to throw out the first pitch at Fenway this year and how great the fans were to cheer and "forgive" him. The classy thing would've been to do it 10 years ago, not after they've won two championships. And, the real question should be whether Buckner would forgive the fans, not if they would forgive him. If I were Bill I would have come to the mound with two middle fingers raised high, then brought Bucky Dent out to throw the first pitch.

I'll give the Sawx fans credit, though, just when you think you have all the reasons you need to hate them, they give you another. I'm at the point now, I'd dislike them even if I weren't a Yankee fan.

Today's sketch: a scribble of A-Rod's fourth strikeout of the day. Forgive me for not putting a whole lot of effort into it. After yesterday's game it was tough to get up for.