If a team wins the way the Yankees won on Sunday afternoon over the Rays then you know things are going well. The Bombers were given the victory by a shaky Tampa Bay defense and bad pitching. Scoring on a walk, an error, and a fielder’s choice doesn’t really do much to boost an offensive line-up but the sizzling bats took the unseasonably warm day off and were still lucky enough to come away with a win.

Joba looked strong again despite a poor 6^th inning effort. Prior to the sixth Joba had only allowed two hits and was looking well on his way to back-to-back 8 inning outings, but was halted by a high pitch count resulting in a two run inning and a surrendered lead. Alfredo Aceves would come into clean up the mess and record his fourth win of the season taking his record to 4-1 with a 2.70 ERA. He has looked strong out of the pen for the Bombers and deserves a few pats on the back from the Yankee starters. Yankee fans should pay close attention to Aceves who, as I predicted in March, could be a strong go to guy all season long.

It wasn’t a pretty way to win but it was a win they needed considering the week of rivals they are about to face. After they close out the series on Monday night against the Rays they are staring at 6 difficult games that the fans would really like to see end up W’s.

They head up to Boston on Tuesday night where Burnett and Beckett will face off to start the series. The former Marlins teammates will duel it out, as the Yankees embarrassingly will try for their first win against the SAWKS this season. Burnett is coming off a strong performance against the Rangers last Tuesday where he chalked up 7 innings, only 3 ER and 8 SO. That may have been his best game of the season and considering the weather (rain and cold) looks like it will mirror itself on Tuesday, I’m feeling good about a probable Yankee victory. Its all a matter of if the Yankees can continue to swing the bat the way they have recently; now would not be the time to cool off.

Boston is coming off a series loss to the Rangers, the same Rangers the Yankees have taken 4 out of 6 from in the past two weeks, the same Rangers the Yankees are tied with for the best record in the AL ahead of the BoSox. The Sox have dropped 2 of 3 to the Mets, Blue Jays and Rangers, and split a 4 game series with the Twins over the past two and a half weeks. They aren’t really playing their best baseball and the Yankees should look to take advantage.

The only scary thing about the upcoming series with Boston is the second game where it looks like the Bombers will be putting Wang on the mound with his shrinking 14.46 ERA. He’ll be going up against Wakefield who has racked up a surprising 7 wins which is more then any Yankee has tallied up thus far.   If the Yankees can get through Wang’s start then they’ll have CC waiting to take on Brad Penny who despite his 5-2 record, isn’t that impressive. Opponents are hitting .309 against Penny so far and he has an ERA over 6.00 at Fenway this season. CC looked as if he was going to cruise through the start of the summer but was slightly derailed on Saturday where he took a no-decision. He’s got to be on and pitching with a swagger on Thursday. If all goes according to plan he should have the opportunity to close out the sweep.

After the Boston series the Yanks head home to take on their cross-town “rivals.” This is probably the most over hyped and played out series in baseball but if the Comissioner still wants this stupid interleague play thing then I guess the Mets and Yankees will have to carry the torch. I could care less about the Yankees-Mets series and am tired of the fact that we’re always stuck playing a pretty good Mets team 6 games a season while teams like the Orioles get to play the Nationals and visa versa.

The Yankees have been straight rolling the past few weeks and each off-season investment is starting to show their worth. Tex had the best May for a Yankee since the Mick and he’ll definitely need to keep his hot bat steaming if the Bombers expect to go to Boston and wreck house. A-Rod could use a good Boston series because I’m sure we all know their boos will project a little further than elsewhere in the bigs.

The Yankees have worked hard the past 5 weeks to make watching them a whole lot more tolerable and have calmed the nerves of the inpatient Yankee fan. Although they’ve looked impressive, even against the surprising Rangers, they really haven’t been given much of a test. They looked bad Saturday and were blessed with a win Sunday. Starting Monday they have 7 games of tough rivalry driven baseball. The kind of baseball the Yankees and their fans use to salivate over; the type of baseball the Yankees have been losing the past couple years.

Although their record and that fact that its still only June would lead you believe they could afford a couple more losses, they can’t; not to these teams. The Red Sox will more likely than not be the team the Yankees are battling with come the end of the season. They need to beat the Red Sox and beat them often–starting Tuesday.