Sure he's only played 518 consecutive games for Steinbrener et al., but the dependable Yankees left fielder was looking at an unblemished 1,769 games without missing a beat before sliding to catch a line drive by Mark Loretta in the top of the first inning and coming up with a fractured left wrist instead of the catch.  Just the night before there was a moment when he had made a tricky catch and quickly removed his glove and inspected his fingers.  "Looks hurt" I said to my viewing companion.  "Nah - this guy hasn't missed a game in over a thousand games" he said "you don't play that many games straight without playing through some degree of pain."  A few weeks ago Carl Crawford of TB, while at Fenway, made a somewhat questionable catch and spent the next day warm and cozy on the DL for his boo boo finger.  I like Carl Crawford but he's no Hideki Matsui.  Torre has got to be going insane.  "It's huge," Derek Jeter said. "It's not like you can throw somebody out there and have them do what Matsui does. Hopefully, somebody will step up."  Huge indeed with Sheff also on the DL until probably June for a sprained wrist after slamming into Shea Hillenbrand on April 29th. 

See what I'm doing here?  I'm showing our opponents my concern.  Because we beat the pants off of them last night in an absolutely poetic struggle in the kind of miserable weather that Jobu saves just for Sox Yankees matchups.  Wakefield gets run support, Foulke and Timlin are at their best and Papelbon gets the win against his hero Mariano Riviera with a far-too-plausible tying run at the plate.  The Yanks tried hard but couldn't overcome a few crucial errors and even a game show like 6th inning where each Sox batter got his own pitcher couldn't stop the impending blood loss.  In the end, we left the bases full three times and were setting ourselves up for a few weeks of bad mojo but those nine phantom runs can go forgotten as we eeked out a terrific series win and the right to get the hell out of Dodge and return to our cozy green stadium.  There isn't a chance in hell we'll actually play the Rangers tonight, with all this rain, but that's ok because alot of us will be getting sleep tonight for the first time all week. 

See ya New York.  Take care of your left fielder.  You'll need him.