How important are the next

seven days to the Yanks ?

Going into tonight’s game against Baltimore the Yanks are 2 games up on Boston (1 in the win column, 3 in the loss) thanks to the Yankees splitting the series 2-2 with the LA Angels last night, while Boston lost to the league leading Detroit Tigers.

So the next 3 nights are taken up with a home stand against the 51-67 Orioles , who the Sux swept before taking on the 77-41 Tigers, and then on Friday it’s off to Beantown for 5 games in 4 days.

From Friday’s double header through to Monday’s early afternoon contest, not long after ESPN’s Sunday Night Game (thankfully shown here on five), how much say will these games have on the final standings of the A.L. East ?

As Boston are currently 3 games behind the White Sox, level with the Twins, in the Wild Card race this is a real must win series. The ChiSox are back to their winning ways after the post All-Star game slump which saw their stars in the rotation look far from last years class.

Moose, Lidle & Wright are lined up to face Baltimore in this series leaving Wang, Ponson, Johnson, Moose and probably Lidle to be the starters at Fenway.

Randy Johnson (13-9) has been carrying on his season long up and down like a bog lid routine these last few starts, two great games against the Angles and the White Sox followed two outings in which he didn’t manage a single K and gave up 9 runs in 3.1 innings against Tampa Bay.

Mussina and Chien-Ming Wang (both 13-5) have both had ropy outings their last couple of games and I shudder to think of Ponson (4-5) in a must win game.

Bobby Abreu has so far proved his worth, with good AVG and OBP, even getting his first home run for some time and a sac bunt for the first time in over 8 years. And having Cano back at 2nd is like acquiring a new player.

Now just have to wrap up these two series behind a storming offence and defence performance by A-Rod, now he can hit the opposite way, and the week couldn’t go any better.