The Yankees Win; I Lose

The Associated Press

Good afternoon fanatics! I'm sure that you are all feeling pretty good today, going back to work and bragging to anyone who will listen about how the Yankees just completely embarrassed the Red Sox this weekend. I'm sure that you are all gloating over what must have been every Red Sox fan's worst nightmare. Well, good for you; I wish that I could join in on the bragging and gloating, but I'm still too upset about the fact that I missed Saturday's game.

Yes, I was not at home when Nick Swisher and Mark Teixeira went on an absolute tear in late innings to bring the Yankees back from being down 7-0, to winning 15-9. On Saturday, I took a trip with family and friends to Atlantic City. So I, completely forgetting that the game would be broadcast on FOX, did not employ the use of my DVR; I thought I could watch the encore on the YES Network. Bummer.

And to be completely honest, I wasn't going to watch the encore, as I caught a short part of the early innings via a sports bar in the Bally's Wild, Wild West Casino. At that time, the Yankees were down 6-0, and I was convinced that they had given that one away. You can imagine my shock when, on the bus coming back home, my cousin Hector--an even bigger Yankee fan than I am--screamed from his seat behind me, "Oh s*** Rasheeda, the Yankees came back and won that game. They beat Boston 15-9!" He was catching updates from the game on his cell phone.

So, I'm not going to go over what happened, or give you guys stats. I could easily go to yankees.com and get all that info, but I don't feel like doing that. Sorry, but I'm selfish that way. I'm mad as hell at myself for not paying better attention to the programming schedule. This could end up being the biggest game for the Yankees this year; a turning point that inspires a lot of winning, and the best I could get out of it were a couple of highlights on ESPN. I promise you fanatics, this will never happen again.

The Associated Press

But I would like to say a few words about Swish and Tex. Both of these guys are stepping up big time and, while it's exciting for us Yankee fans, it's also somewhat bittersweet. There is a huge possibility that this could be Swish's last hoorah with the Yankees. He's in a contract year, and the Yankees will make cuts in order to keep both Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson on the payroll, while keeping it to $189 million or less. ESPN's Buster Olney pointed out last night that the Yankees have some promising outfielders in their farm system and are a team that likes to bring up their young talent. So Swish could very well be on his way out at the end of the season. If the Yankees are considering letting him go, what could only help his case to stay would be to have a fantastic post-season, assuming the Yankees make it in. Swish is batting .283 with 4 home runs and is leading the team with a whopping 20 RBIs.

Getty Images

And it is refreshing to finally see Tex have a great April. It was slow goings for him during the first week of the season, but he's managed to turn that all around. I said in Yankees 2012 Season: Five Areas for Success that in order for this team to win the AL East, one thing that had to happen was getting more production from Tex. So far, he's batting .288 with three home runs, and is third on the team in RBIs with 11. Hopefully, he keeps this going and can find a way to extend his production into the postseason also.

Follow Rasheeda Cooper on twitter: @ra_cooper