And two points have to be made about the Yankees. First, their much maligned pitching has so far been exceptional. Second, their hitting has been as advertised…or perhaps I should say as expected. The Yanks could almost be renicknamed The American League Hoodoo. National League teams are less impressed by their mystique (witness the success of the Florida Marlins against them last year), but while they remain on their own little patch, the Yankees are awesome in the month of October.

What impresses me most is how balanced their attack is. Of the thirteen runs the Yankees have scored (playing exactly the same lineup both nights), Jeter has two, A-Rod has two, Sheffield has four, Matsui has two, Posada has one, Olerud has one (his two-run bomb last night won the game), and Lofton has one. Only Miguel Cairo and Bernie Williams have failed to score for the Yankees—this is just two games.

It’s true that all but two of the Red Sox players (Cabrera and Damon) have also scored, but Bellhorn, Ortiz, Millar, Varitek and Mueller have each only scored once, and in a single run-through of the batting order (during innings seven and eight of Game 1). Only Trot Nixon, who always seems to step his game up to Yankee levels during the postseason, scored for the Sox in both games.

Meantime, we’re done with Yankee Stadium for a while,[73] and we have the day off to regroup. Compared to those things, there is no bad news.

Yep, Pedro made a quality start (on the forty-fourth anniversary of Maz’s home run). He had some Ramon-like struggles early, but wriggled out of them and settled down nicely. The high-priced, steroid-pumped, former–All-Star, -MVP, -Japanese national hero heart of the Yankee order did as much as our own vaunted Mark Bellhorn, Kevin Millar and Orlando Cabrera, which was nothing. The home run Pedro gave up was to borderline Hall of Famer John Olerud (yet another midseason pickup, not truly a Yankee at all), with his pitch count above 100, to the short part of a shrunken ballpark. We just didn’t hit. Score one run in the AL, you’re going to lose; it doesn’t matter if you’re playing the Yanks or the D-Rays.

So we didn’t get the split. It may be demoralizing, but it shouldn’t be a huge surprise. George paid dearly for the Yankees to have the best home record in all of baseball. But guess who had the second best? We’ll have to win throwing Bronson, Wake and Lowe, but we haven’t taken the easy way all year—and that includes overcoming injuries to key players. We just have to stay hopeful and throw everything we’ve got at them Friday night (weather permitting), win that, battle on Saturday, and even the series. We could even lose a game up at Fenway and win this thing, we’ve just got to hit. Keep the Faith.