more notes from yankee stadium

on tuesday night the new york yankees lost to the boston red sox 7-3 ... arod's effort was less than impressive ... the much needed yankees sweep of the series would not happen ... last night the red sox prevailed again ... this time pounding yankees pitching to an 11-3 win ... and this time pretty much the entire yankees lineup was less than impressive ... and seemingly uninspired ... now the desperately needed series win will not happen for the yankees either ... so, tomorrow afternoon the yankees will be playing to avoid their worst nightmare ... a series sweep by the red sox ... which would put the yankees 8 games behind the wild card leading red sox and 11 1/2 games behind the division leading tampa bay rays

a byrd and two bats ... last october, paul byrd was pitching the cleveland indians to postseason victories over both the new york yankees and boston red sox ... last night, he pitched the red sox to their win over the yankees <> 6 innings <> 5 hits <> 2 runs <> 2 walks <> 5 strikeouts ... the two bats that clubbed yankees pitching ... dustin pedroia and jason bay ... pd had 3 hits including his first career grand slam ... and jason bay had a double, triple and 4 rbi's

since joining the red sox on august 1st ... jason bay's numbers look like this <> 93 at bats <> .344 batting average <> 4 home runs <> 23 rbi's ... out on the left coast ... manny's numbers <> 87 at bats <> .379 average ... 6 home runs <> 21 rbi's

an early morning look at the back pages of the new york newspapers (new york daily news and newsday) is not a pretty sight ... over at the new york post ... the back page focuses on the mets ... but joel sherman has thrown in the towel on the 2008 season

after last night's game ... terry francona announced newly aquired outfielder mark kotsay would start today ... in fact, kotsay will play right field and bat 6th in the order ... jacoby ellsbury will move to center field and coco crisp will get the day off

2008 has been a breakout year for the red sox soft spoken, 24 year old left handed starting pitcher jon lester ... and 2008 has the potential to be a truly magnificant season for jon lester ... highlighted by health and a no-hitter ... going into today's start at yankee stadium ... lester is 12-5 with a 3.49 era ... he leads the red sox in innings pitched (170) and is among the league leaders in that category ... hmmmm ... in his last start, jon lester was pummeled by the toronto blue jays ... it was the shortest outing of his career (2.1 innings) ... he had only allowed 7 runs once before in his career ... that was back in august of 2006 against the new york yankees ... 6 days before jon was diognosed with lymphoma ... so today's start is important ... the question of the day will be ... is jon lester wearing down ... lester is a big, strong guy ... but 170 innings pitched is new territory for him ... lester has been excellent against the yankees this season <> 2-0 <> 1.13 era <> 3 walks <> 16 strikeouts ... so, if jon lester pitches well today ... the "is he getting tired" questions will go away ... if he falters for a second time in august ... there will be morons calling sports radio by sundown claiming lester needs a rest (with one of those phantom injury trips to the disabled list) ... and that michael bowden should get the call up to replace him ... or clay buchholz after an excellent start a few nights ago up in portland