Yankees 3, Twins 0

Let's see. Assume it's the first week in October. In New York. Or Detroit or Cleveland or Arlington.

Game 1: CC
Game 2: Hughes
Game 3: Nova
Game 4: Colon or Garcia
Game 5: CC

Like. Our. Chances.

Over at Grantland (headlined by Boston freak Bill Simmons, who counts as his buddies Malcom Gladwell, whose next best-seller will undoubtedly be entitled Don't Screw with Mr. Big, so you've been warned), a Yankee fan admits to rooting against the Yankees for the first time in his life: "He Must Be Stopped."

Guess who? Hint: Last night's game.

Aw, you peeked:

. . . for one day and one day only I'll be rooting against the Yankees. I want A.J. Burnett to have a devastating professional disaster. It’s for the good of the team. I want the experience to be so sour that Girardi actually bans him from the clubhouse. I want the Yankees to build a bronze statue of that moment, and I want to buy a poster of the statue and hang it in my bedroom.

This is, as Simmons's other pal Chuck Klosterman would write, the Lenin Theory of Sports: The Worse, the Better.

CC Sabathia, barring injury, is headed toward the greatest Yankee career of any Yankee starter free-agent ever. Better than Catfish, Tommy John, or Moose.

AJ? 82 million dollars . . . really, for his performance in one pivotal, essential, God-we-need-ya game in 2 3/4 years.

2009 World Series. Game 2.

In which he was only a shade short of brilliant against Philly's two-legged meat grinders, after CC was rousted against Cliff Lee.

This year, assuming the pitching aligns, Game 2 of a Philly-New York World Series will be against Cliff Lee.

As in, Yankee-killer Cliff Lee.

The night after CC goes against Yankee-killer Roy Halladay.

In Philadelphia.

AJ? Nova? Hughes?

Your life depended on it, whom would you pick?

Game 3 vs. Hamels? Nova or AJ?

Game 4? Oswalt? Colon, Garcia, or AJ?