Darth Marc's Vampire Chronicles

Take a look at the time that I posted this and you'll understand the name.

Contrary to recently published reports in several rebellion strongholds, I did not choke myself to death with a force choke hold over the weekend due to the Yanks slow start.

The truth is, I haven't been home much this weekend and since I was sleeping all day Sunday and Monday...this was the first chance I had to sit down and write something.

I didn't get up until 5:15 Sunday afternoon and thankfully when I turned the game on, the Yanks were up 8-1. Moose looked sharp and had his off-speed stuff working. Posada and A-Rod had good days as well. Nice way to end a rocky road trip.

Call me a wide-eyed optimist, but I'm not totally discouraged by this start. We faced some pitchers with some nasty stuff and we made them work for their supper. Pitch counts in all the games were high for the opposing pitchers so I like the hitters approach even though the results weren't there.

The pitching was decent as well. Unit and Moose looked good in their two starts and Wang and Chacon were erratic but could have had better results if a couple of breaks went their way. But we faced some of the best pitching we'll face all year in this trip. Zito, Harden, Haren, Escobar, Santana and Colon. Not a dud in the entire bunch. When you face arms like that, sometimes you're going to end up on the short end of stick.

Add the fact that Oakland and Anaheim are two of the better defensive teams in the league and you have a 2-4 start to the season.

The American League is loaded this year and I realize now that my victory totals were a little high for the division winners. I doubt anyone is going to win 100 wins in the AL this year. The high will probably be around 95-98 wins.

I expect good things this week facing off against KC at home. But after the way they played us last year, I don't expect an easy ride. These bottom feeder seem to get off on playing us. Regardless of who's the champ, teams always view knocking off the Yanks as something special.

This is the sort of garbage that I have to clean out of my email-box on my days off. This is from the Metsmaster.

New Mets park looks sweet.

Cozy and fan friendly vs. shock/awe sterile. Charming vs. monolithic. Fun vs. moribund.

This is why, infidels, that this will never be a Mets town for any extended amount of time. Because instead of creating your own history, reveling in your own successes...you're constantly trying to compare yourself to a standard that you can't possibly live up to. I really hope that the new Mets park becomes one of the must-see stadiums in the sport. We know Shea sure as hell isn't. But Yankee Stadium, new or old, will continue to be one of the go-to spots in baseball. The Mets drew a little over 25,000 for their second game of the year. I guarantee the Yanks will draw well over 120,000 for these first three games. When the Mets can do that consistently, then you can talk to me.