Yankees 9, Birds 6

Wow.

Talk abut playing with house money.

This game was placed behind the DirecTV curtain, so I was left to make sense of it by way of the dots racing around the screen of my laptop.

The Yankees get one day closer to an early clinch--and, it is becoming clearer, a first-round confrontation with Minnesota.

Anything could happen. Detroit is a young team with problems of its own (Dmitri Young--what was that about, anyway?) and a veteran pitcher (Kenny Rogers) well-known for his October meltdowns. Far from running away with things, Detroit could finish out of the playoffs altogether. The White Sox seem to be a team more willing to beat you up on the field than on the scoreboard; not since the Bronx Zoo days of the 1970s have I seen a championship team, or a champion manager, more eager to complicate problems than resolve them. Ozzie Guillen's mixture of vanity and recklessness seem to guide him on the same path as Billy Martin and--maybe more to the point--Jimmy Johnson, the only coach ever fired immediately after winning a championship. Paradoxically for Ozzie, another playoff appearance and he may find himself out of a job.

The Angels are the Angels--the only team to defeat the Yankees twice in the post-season during the Joe Torre era. Has anyone ever noticed? The Yankees seem confident they can beat the A's the way they always beat the A's, the same way they used to always beat the Red Sox, right up until October 2004, up three games to none, ahead in the ninth, Rivera pitching . . . and Dave Roberts leading off first.

No, I'm betting the only team the Yankees seriously sweat between here and the Mets are those Twins, provided Liriano is healthy. Two top-flight starting pitchers can play hell with the best of teams in a short series--just ask the 1998 hundred-win Astros, all set to ride their 10-1 Unit straight to a presumptive World Series match-up with the Yankees, before running into the Padres' Kevin Brown and Sterling Hitchcock and bowing lamely, three games to one.

Now, Santana and Liriano. Stay tuned.