Beat On The Brat With A Baseball Bat»

They weren’t showing the Yanks/Sox matchup at the bar I was at last night, and after I left the bar I had some Top Chef-related program activities to attend (an excellent dinner provided by the one-two punch of Sara Mead and Matthew Yglesias), but.

It’s ludicrous to get wrapped up in the fact that the season series is tied at two games when, after tonight, it obviously won’t be. And I’ve only watched the first two games — I was at Fenway on Friday and saw Beckett-vs-Moose Round I on NESN — but it really is striking how both teams have built their lineups and their bullpens (even before they set their strategies) around each other. Wang’s Friday night complete-game victory seemed commanding from the write-ups, but it looked rather tenuous from the Fenway bleachers, at least until the 8th inning.

So I introduce that caveat when reading through the New York Times‘ account of the Yanks’ 15-9 win last night. The hero appears to be LaTroy Hawkins, and, honestly, thank the Lord. The acquisition of Hawkins, a 13-year veteran pitcher, caused a big stir among fans and commentators who thought it looked like the same old story — GM Brian Cashman buying expensive wash-ups at the expense of his declared strategy of cultivating the farm system that’s already given us Robi, Melky, Hughes, Kennedy and Joba. “The firm of Farnsworth & Hawkins won’t cut it,” Dean Balsamini blogged in December.

Obviously two scoreless innings don’t provide sufficient counterevidence for any pro-Hawkins claim. But in a big game like the first Yanks-Sox battle of 2008 in the Bronx, Hawkins protected our house, and that should buy him some goodwill. According to the NYT, Hawkins was booed for wearing Paul O’Neill’s number 21 (put it in Monument Park already!) and so he switched to 22. I happen to hold out hope that Robi Cano will put his rookie #22 back on, so my t-shirt doesn’t look bootleg, but I guess now that Cano is going to stay with #24 I’m the owner of a throwback. Anyway: go Yanks! Mussina beats Beckett tonight, because he’s angry with himself for not having his good stuff on Saturday. (Even though he fanned Ortiz!)