Yankees 9, D-Rays 5

So here it is, a day late: my attempt to capture every single Yankees game of the 2007 season.

A day has passed. What do we think we know?

*The two most important (by important, think tipping-point important, think Malcolm Gladwell) members of the Yankees are going to be Hrubey and Vizcaino--if they stay healthy and if they don't suck. Unless the Yankees starting pitching is much, much worse than I expect (the Yanks are notoriously safe with injuries, especially pitchers), this edition of the Yanks are good for 93 wins, easy. Since 2000 they've been looking to re-do the bullpen that gave them three consecutive World Series Championships; they've done it all kinds of ways: various Witasicks and Wohlers; a return, in turn, of Stanton, Nelson, and Mendoza; big bucks to Flash Gordon (which worked as far as it went, until the 2004 ALCS, when Flash, undone by a season of exhausting work, could barely play catch with Georgie, and the season went down the tubes); and finally, last year with Sturtze, Proctor, Kardiac Kyle and Mo--more thrills and chills. In the immortal words of Guido the Killer Pimp, this is getting boring. Is finding two or three relievers who can get through the sixth and seventh without resembling carnival sideshows really that impossible? Will we see Proctor make it to September and still be able to open his front door without wincing? Are Hruby and Viz for real? Just asking. The answer is the season, long term.

*The Yankees will have to win games like yesterday's, if only because they may find themselves behind in the sixth and seventh more than they would like to be. Still, we can talk about the great Yankee rotation of Rocket, Wells, Lefty, and Moose in 2003 . . . and then remind ourselves how many times the Yankees found themselves behind first the Red Sox, then the Mariners. The freaking Mariners.

*A-Rod is fine. Still, though: A-Rod at short, Jeter at second, Cano at third. How many extra wins? Three, four?