Yankees, Red Sox, East Coast Baseball

I am with Jim Rome on this one.

Mariano Rivera is one of the greatest pitchers of all time... And he does it with virtually one pitch. The man is, in the truest sense of the word, unflappable.

Never mind his 22 consecutive postseason saves or his ERA of less than 1.00. Never mind his three-shutout innings in Game 7 of the ALCS against the Red Sox with everything on the line.

The man is liquid out there. You watch Rivera walk to the mound and he exudes the confidence of knowing what all opposing players now know -- when Mariana comes in its game over.

As much as I hate to admit it, being an anti-Yankee, Rivera seems, like a fine wine, to get better with age. Each year as time calls, it seems to forget one man: Mariano Rivera.

I keep thinking this will be the year the Yankees no longer have the X-factor, but the man is if nothing else ageless.

Picture it if you can, anyone other than Rivera coming in for a save situation. Seems odd, doesn't it?

Reports of Yankees demise greatly exaggerated...

Since all attention, both by the fans, but particularly by the media, gravitates towards New York and the Yankees, much was said about the wobbly 8-11 start the Bronx Bombers got off to.

Don't look now, but that same team is now 14-11.

After sweeping aside Oakland's "big three" of Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito, the Yanks breezed by the hapless Royals in each of their three games to push its winning streak to six games.

Everyone can calm down now, ok?

It's funny, most of the time it's George Steinbrenner who overreacts to Yankee struggles by waging a media war against the indomitable Joe Torre. Usually it is the media who pokes fun at George by telling him to relax and the Yanks will be fine.

The shoe, as it were, is on the other foot.

It was Steinbrenner who released a statement just after being swept by the Red Sox that he had all the confidence in his great manager, Torre, and his superb GM Brian Cashman, to get the job done.

Meanwhile, print and broadcast media were in a frenzy, "what's wrong with the Yankee's?" Well, nothing, frankly.

East Coast Baseball: There is nothing like it...

Red Sox fans are probably pulling their hair out, but not because they were swept by the surging Rangers, rather that Pedro Martinez is more concerned about his contract than he is about this season and this team.

Martinez defines the Red Sox as they are currently constituted. He is 104-30 since joining the Red Sox. Each year the Sox have built around Pedro and this year is their best chance to win a World Series in since 1918, the last year the sox were atop the baseball world.

The Red Sox saga is already enough of a sideshow without having you best player wine about an extension. How about going out and earning the 17.5 million dollars you are making this year?

If you are looking for an extension Pedro, going 3-2 with a 4.15 ERA out of the gate isn't very promising.

This year, unlike most years during his Boston tenure, the Red Sox have one of the best bullpens in baseball with a premiere closer in Keith Foulke. While in years past many of his potential wins were coughed up by the bullpen, there isn't that same excuse this year.

For the first time, Pedro can go seven strong innings instead of trying to complete every game, and have the confidence that the pen will wrap things up.

The other side to this coin is that now the spotlight will truly rest on Pedro's precarious shoulder. If he wants that contract extension he needs to do something that he has never been able to do-win the pennant, otherwise his threat to join the Yankees remains what it is today, a hollow one.

Final Thought: Lets not get too carried away Joe... Recently in one of his columns for ESPN, baseball analyst Joe Morgan said that "not only are the Red Sox the better team, they now believe they are the better team."

Morgan wrote earlier in this same article that he thought -- even with the addition of A-Rod -- that the Red Sox, when completely healthy of course, surpassed the Yanks in talent.

This may be true, and I for one believe it is, but to say that the Sox now believe they are the better team after winning six of seven games in April is a bit of a stretch.

To be sure going 6-1 against the Bombers at any time is no small feat in the Torre era, but to say that the Red Sox have the edge with their history is going a little far.

Do I want the Red Sox to beat the Yankees every time they go head to head? You bet. Do I think they are finally the better team? Yes.

I just can't go as far as Morgan until the Red Sox do something they haven't done in the modern era, namely beat the Yankees when it matters most -- in October with the pennant and a World Series berth on the line.