By Geoff Walter / SNY.tv

 

Rivals egg us on, they taunt and tease, but their mere presence has the ability to do something their absence cannot provide: force us to improve. Rivals push us. But inevitably one must succeed and one must fail. Last season the Yankees succeeded in sweeping a five-game set at Fenway, forcing the Red Sox to upgrade their pitching staff. This year Boston has succeeded in holding onto the AL East for now, forcing the Yankees to promote their pitching prospects to the Major Leagues.

And so the eternal chess match goes on, but even the most cunning tactics, the most calculated strategy, and all the correct moves cannot account for that most intangible and fleeting of human emotions: hope, which can overcome even the most dire of situations. Here, in this series, it can be smothered almost to the point of extinction with a home run off David Ortiz's bat and rekindled with the chords of "Enter Sandman."

The Red Sox thought the Yanks buried themselves 13 1/2 games back in the beginning of the season. They dug themselves out to six games behind with four games left between the two teams to play. Boston had their rotation set to perfection this week with Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett, and Curt Schilling. "The Yankees never go away," they grumble in the bars up in Beantown, casually looking over their shoulder a bit more frequently now than they did in the month of May. Even to assure themselves a tie for the AL East crown, the Bombers would have to sweep the remaining games plus some key Red Sox losses. A small thread of hope, yes, but a thread is enough. The Yankees never go away.

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