Francona’s talking like Nomar will be back on Tuesday and that he’ll be used as a DH for a while, letting Pokey, Marky Mark and Youk stay on the field and in the lineup. Ultimately though, he’ll have to sit someone. Pokey’s the glove and the glue, Bellhorn’s the table-setter, but it’s hard to pull Youk after how well he’s played. For his .318 average and .446 OBP, he’s been named May’s AL Rookie of the Month.

A stray stat in the paper: since 2001, the Yankees are 44-17 against the O’s.

Make that 45-17, as the O’s succumb once again. They’re under .500 now. The problem, I think, is that the O’s are basically a cheaper version of the Yanks—so-so pitching backed by lots of free-agent bats. Like the Yanks, they’re designed to overwhelm mediocre clubs, a wise enough strategy in this post-expansion era (the same strategy the Yanks used in the ’50s, when their ace was the lackluster Whitey Ford and they feasted on the second division), but no guarantee of success in the playoffs. As the D-Backs, Angels and Marlins (and 1960 Pirates) have proven, to beat a club that grossly outspends you, you have to bring a whole different style of ball. There’s no way the O’s can match George’s payroll, so they’ll always be a few bats short.

We’re two and a half back for the first time all year. It’s not a hole, but it will take a streak to get us back even.

At the high school senior awards assembly, Caitlin’s friend Ryan, who we’ve been giving grief about his Yankees since April, says, “Have you seen the standings?”

“Hey,” I say, “you guys’ll do fine if you only have to play the O’s.”

June 5th

It’s time to admit it: this is the dreaded Red Sox losing streak.

Worse, it’s the dreaded Red Sox losing streak combined with the even more dreaded (and apparently endless) Yankee winning streak.

No Jayme Parker on NESN’s SportsDesk this morning to ease the pain; it’s Saturday and Mike Perlow is subbing. And although I tune in at 7:12 A.M., near the end of the show’s fifteen-minute loop and during a story about the Olympic Torch reaching Australia (huh?), I already know the worst. Perlow is one of those late-twenty- or early-thirty-somethings who look about fourteen, and this morning there is no sparkle in the Perlow eye, no lift in the Perlow shoulders. We lost. I’m sure we lost. But of course I hang in there to be sure and of course we did. The unsparkling eye does not lie.