Yankees don't surprise Red Sox

The preliminary bouts of the 2008 baseball season are finished. Time for the main event: Yankees vs. Red Sox, Fenway Park, Chamberlain and Beckett in the glare of the pennant race. Some people aren't surprised, " One way or another, (the Yankees) know how to figure it out,” Ortiz said in St. Petersburg, Fla., one day before the Sox visited a Yankees team that was 7 games behind first-place Tampa Bay. “Time will tell. It’s a long season. These kids down the street (the Rays) have been playing well, you can’t take that way from them. But things happen. Sometimes experience shows up and takes over." Big Papi the prophet has more, "“Everybody knows that. Look how they’re playing now. I’ve been dealing with this for years. You should know better. These guys, they were in worse shape last year than they were this year, and even then they were in the playoffs (and) fighting for first-place at the end of the season.”
This time last year, the Yankees were in the midst of a similar resurgence, riding a six-game winning streak that put them six games behind the first-place Red Sox. Two months later, they were neck-and-neck with a Sox team most thought couldn’t be caught.
This season, surprise won’t be an option."

The uniforms are the same but the cast has changed. Last season, Clemens was in the rotation and the bullpen was saved by a Double-A kid. Joba Chamberlain left the bullpen bridge to go on to bigger and potentially better things. Tonight, the training wheels come off; the future is now. Joba squares off in hostile Fenway against an established #1 Josh Beckett. He will be supported by a rebuilt pen that has looked very good against modest opposition. Tonight the heat gets turned up and the real tests begin.

Yankees' followers can't ask for more, given the dire circumstances and miscalculations that have riddled the first 101 games. The pennant race is a Yankees' tradition. Tonight, in Boston it will be Deja Vu all over again.