I know we’re only a couple weeks in, but that was the best game of the season. The sort of knock ’em down, drag ’em out grindfest you expect to see when the Yanks come to town, and so much better than the 12-0 blow-outs these much-anticipated contests too often dissolve into. More importantly, this one saw me get back to mid-season “drinking, shouting and punching-at-imaginary-ghosts” form, which is dangerous for me, my walls and any small animals within 50 yards, but I find it a much more enjoyable way to soak it all in. Bottom line, if you don’t like watching a guy randomly drop his pants and press his bare ass to the TV screen when Johnny Damon steps to the plate, you don’t watch a game with me. So consider yourselves warned.

Anyway. What’s amazing about yesterday’s game was how quickly everything went south for the Yankees. Through the first three innings, New York plated 6 runs while we could only muster one hit against the mighty AJ. And when you’re paying a pitcher 82 million dollars, I’m guessing you expect him to be able to hold down such a sizable lead. But Burnett unraveled pretty quickly in the fourth, giving up a hit and two walks to let the Sox load the bases (and God bless JD Drew for holding off the last pitch he saw to nail the walk). After Bay singled, driving in a run, Mikey Lowell looked positively dismal swinging and missing at a third strike for the second out, and I thought Burnett might actually get out of it. But then Tek came through with a first pitch grand slam and before Joe Girardi even knew what hit him, that 6-0 lead dissolved to 6-5 and he moved one step closer to an angry telegram from the Steinbrenner Boys.

Yes, what I thought would be a taut pitcher’s duel, filled with buzzcut fastballs and at least one Beckett-induced bench clearing, turned into a flat-out slug fest. And it was the best kind of slug fest, because we won. Thanks in part to a 6-RBI day for Lowell, who more than atoned for his K with the bases loaded back in the fourth.

It’d be pretty easy to lob a few “worst team money can buy” comments at the boys from New York, but I think they know the score. Anyway, I’m too busy smiling at my own team’s fortunes. All of a sudden, a team that started the season 2-6 has won nine in a row and the offense I spent so many nights worrying about is cranking ’em out like a goddam android hooker (currently being test-marketed in Amsterdam). And we’re one game away from sweeping the bad guys in our first meeting of 2009.

Regardless of how it goes down, these past two games have felt like October in April. And I really can’t ask for anything more.

Edit: Actually, yes I can. Let’s beat those f@#kers again tonight!