I could say that I was really busy this holiday weekend, and that would be only a little bit of a stretch, but I have to admit that the real reason I haven't written in almost a week is that that third yankee game rendered me speechless. Considering the previous night's game made me mad enough to play the Thurman Munson card, you can imagine what kind of night it was after game three ended.

That was the type of game where you really could say "Words can't describe..." As a Sox fan, you never get used to those "One strike away" experiences.

I haven't gone on line since that night, and I understand I missed out on some pretty big Nomar trade rumors, that weren't reported on New York sports radio. But then again, I pretty much avoided that for the few days after that game, too. I was pretty miserable.

But I treat that game as a test. If you can still be a Red Sox fan after watching that game, especially if, like me, you had to watch it with yankee announcers desribing (read: lying about) the action, then you are the ultimate fan, and you deserve only the best in life. I think we weeded out a lot of newer fans who maybe tried to jump aboard after last year's run.

The good news, in my opinion, is that even after that night of uttering things like "It never freakin' ends," the Red Sox are far from dead in the water. They--somehow--came back the next night and took the Braves to extra innings. Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd just given up ten runs in the first inning and sleepwalked through the whole series. It turned out to be another heartbreaking loss, but they came back the next day and got a nice win. Then Derek Lowe pitched the next day...

But it appears that the yanks beating us in that series took even more out of them, instead of vaulting them toward a twenty game winning streak, as the Mets surprisingly showed up and amazingly swept the series.

I'm trying to look at it like this:

Usually we have a lead pretty far in to the season, but then they overtake us because they have much better pitching. But this year, I think they jumped ahead too early, so we've got time to come back, and we're the team with the dominant pitching. Well, that's what I'm hoping happens. Derek Lowe isn't helping. But I've gotta believe all these guys start playing up to their potential.

We've got six games before the break--all at home. If we can just gain a game or two, I think I can live with it at that point. There's lots of baseball left to be played. (Don't you hate when people say that? As if some teams might just start challenging their opponents to a game of darts or something?)