Good morning, good afternoon or good evening my friends - whichever of the aforementioned three apply to you. Welcome to another installment of the Gospel According to "L". I want to apologize for the lateness of this week's Gospel - I was quite busy this weekend and didn't have much time to get it up on time. Next week will hopefully be a different story. All right, we have a few things to discuss - as usual. We got the first part of the nine-game road trip and two other topics concerning the Bombers. No more wasting time - let's get on with it!

Before I begin, I just got my second hate message posted on my guestbook. Click here to read it, and to e-mail the sick animal if you'd like.

All righty, let's begin with the first part of the nine-game road trip, beginning at Ameriquest Field against the Rangers. I was barely satisfied with the outcome - two of three. The only minus was the horrific pitching of Kevin Brown on Tuesday night. He had nothing on Tuesday night - the sinker wasn't sinking and his pitches were hit hard. It's ironic - his only two losses have come to the Rangers down in the suburbs of Dallas! That is nowhere near a good sign, especially if the Rangers make the playoffs as either a wild card team or the AL West champions. Just remember that come October. Now Wednesday and Thursday were different stories when it came to pitching. Tanyon Sturtze didn't do too bad of a job in five innings - only two runs on five hits. Then in come the - as I like to call them - Three Horsemen. Paul Quantrill pitches to six batters and got all of them out; Flash Gordon pitched to three in the eighth and got them all out; and Mariano came to pitch to three in the ninth and guess what he did! True the Bombers beat a rookie pitcher, but what got them the win were their own pitchers - beginning with Sturtze. And then Thursday night, that had to be a gimmie. The Yankees were facing a has-been in Scott Erickson. Then again, no matter who they were facing they'd have gotten themselves a win. El Duque's been unreal this season - he struck out seven in seven innings and only gave up one run. He doesn't throw as hard as Pedro or Randy Johnson, but he knows how to get batters out. How the Yankees even traded him in the first place is hard to believe. They traded him for Antonio Osuna, meanwhile the White Sox went out and got Bartolo Colon! Boy did Cashman and Steinbrenner get lucky to be able to bring him back. Well that was the series in the Lone Star State.

Now onto the series in the Emerald City. This is one of baseball's worst teams, and to only take two out of three up in the Pacific Northwest is unacceptable! This is the American League's best team facing on of the league's worst! Friday's game was fun - Bernie goes deep, El Indio Ruben Sierra go deep off Ron Villone, and so does Jorgie Posada off J.J. Putz (he recently changed the pronunciation of his name to a long u - gee I can't imagine why.) While the Bombers were scoring a ton, Jon Lieber was pitching a beauty - to say the least. Then came Saturday, and a Fox afternoon game with Thom Brennemen and Steve Lyons doing the narration. Compared to Buck and McCarver, they are the lesser of the evils, although Kenny Albert is still the one I'd rather have. The first inning was enjoyable wasn't it? Gary Sheffield hit one towards Vancouver (left field is north at Safeco), and then Bernie went boom off another wash-up: Jamie Moyer. To think, at one time I would have liked to have seen the Yankees get Moyer, but the way he's pitched, we're better off with Esteban Loaiza, and that's saying a lot! Speaking of Loaiza, I don't know what happened to him, but it looks to me as if we may as well have kept Jose Contreras. To not be able to beat a team that is half-composed of the Tacoma Rainiers roster? I'm sorry but that is unacceptable! I will say this much though - you fans in Seattle surprised me when you gave John Olerud a standing ovation. Everybody said he'd receive a standing ovation, but I was the only one saying "no, he will, like every other Yankee, get booed like hell." It happened to Chuck Knoblauch in Minneapolis, it happened to Wade Boggs in Boston, it happened to Tino Martinez in Seattle, it happened to Jason Giambi in Oakland, and of course, it happened to Roger Clemens at Fenway. Let's also not forget what happened to A-Rod in Seattle and Arlington. But when Olerud got the standing o, I was surprised. Finally, you people proved me wrong! And it was him who got the big hit against another AAA'er - George Sherrill. Everybody said he lost bat speed and he was never going the same - thanks for letting us prove you wrong! Now as for Sunday, Kevin Brown finally pitched a good one, but he was stabbed in the back by the bullpen. C.J. Nitkowski couldn't get an out, and Paul Quantrill just poured some more gasoline on the fire, and that was that. This after Brown left with the lead in the seventh! I was still shocked that Ichiro could hit a homerun as far as he did in the first inning. This guy's only about an inch or two taller than me, and he can hit something close to a moonshot? Then again, Mel Ott hit 511, and he was only 5'9". Anyway, a 4-2 road trip is hardly worth celebrating. Now if it had been a 4-2 road trip in Texas and Anaheim or Oakland, then I could see some joy, but not when the last three are against an awful team.

Now before I move on to the next topic, let me preview this week. The Yankees play three up at that handball court known as the Metrodome (don't you miss Metropolitan Stadium?) and then they play three at home against the Angels. These two teams cannot, I repeat, cannot be taken lightly! The Yankees face Johan Santana this week, and he's been unhittable this season. Yeah yeah, the Yankees have swept the Twins in the regular season two years in a row, but you damn well know anything can change in a hurry. And the Twins are in a fight for first in the Central with the Indians and White Sox, so you know they'll be playing at top-notch level. Then the Angels come back to the Stadium - and like I have said, only the theft of their bats, would keep the offense from hurting you. They're also in the race in the AL West with Texas and Oakland, and the Wild Card race with Boston, the White Sox and Texas. If the Yankees play the way they did last week, they would go 1-5. Now you know. All right, let's move to our two topics for the week.

Now I want to talk about the six-man rotation Joe Torre is going with. Back in the old days you'd only have a four-man rotation. Nowadays you have a five-man rotation, until the end of the season should you make the playoffs, and then it turns into a three or four-man rotation. Now that the Yankees have "too many" pitchers, they're going with a six-man rotation - Kevin Brown, Javy Vazquez, Jon Lieber, El Duque, Mike Mussina and Esteban Loaiza. Personally I would have attempted to acquire a Victor Zambrano instead of Loaiza - of course there was no way Randy Johnson was going to come to the Yankees. Unfortunately we're stuck with Loaiza, who is nowhere near the pitcher he was last season. I had a feeling that when Loaiza was coming to the Yankees that there was a good reason he was dealt away. He was a one-year wonder, other than that he's been mediocre at best - why do you think teams like the Pirates, Rangers, and Blue Jays gave up on him before? Other than Loaiza, I'm happy with the rotation - especially with a healthy Mussina. If the Moose can pitch the way he did before his injury, the East race could be over just a little after Labor Day.

Now once the playoffs do start, two of the six will be gone from the rotation, and hopefully one or two to the bullpen for mop-up work. Loaiza should be the first to go in the pen, but who would be the other? El Duque will definitely be in the rotation - you've seen what he does in the postseason, and Brown and Mussina should be at top game by then. That leaves Lieber and Vazquez. Both of these guys are unpredictable, but Lieber has one year of postseason experience (1998 NL Division Series.) Javy Vazquez has never pitched for a good team until this season, but you don't want to waste his arm. Who do you take out? You cannot go with a five-man rotation - especially in the Division Series where game 5 will be the decider. It seems like a good idea to have a six-man rotation, however pretty soon Joe Torre's going to have to come to his senses and make a decision. All right, now time to finish off this week's Gospel.

I want to cap off this week by talking about how the national sports media despises the Yankees. "What? Oh come on Cat, that's not true - you're exaggerating!" Well you be the judge after you read this. Now the local media will criticize the Yankees, but they'll do it with regret. However they will never ever put other players above their hometown team, unless they truly feel another player from another team is better. The national media, on the other hand, will put down the Yankees as much as they can, no matter what!

Did you notice back when A-Rod played for Seattle and Texas that he was always the best shortstop in the game? Others would say Nomar was, but Jeter? Oh no absolutely not! After all, all Jeter did was win four rings, and not by just sitting there and watching. He hit well and made some big defensive plays (1998 ALCS, 2001 Division Series - twice!) But what does that matter, right? As far as they were concerned, Jeter sucked. Now that A-Rod is a Yankee and playing perfectly at third base - Scott Rolen is the game's best third baseman. Before A-Rod became a Yankee he was the best player in baseball, now they'd rather have Scott Rolen at third base. The same goes with Ken Griffey Jr. and Bernie Williams. Bernie is rarely, if ever on the DL - Griffey lives on the DL - it's almost like a second home. Bernie has won four rings as well, also not by just sitting there and watching (all-time postseason homerun leader) while Griffey has only won one playoff series in his life (1995 Division Series) and nothing since! Yet they'd all rather have Griffey.

It gets worse! Mariano Rivera - one of the game's greatest relievers ever! He has one of the best postseason save conversion percentages, one of the lowest postseason ERA's, and one of the game's most feared relief pitchers. But who cares about that? Eric Gagne is better! Yes, Gagne had a long, long consecutive saves streak, and he is one of the game's best relievers. How many All-Star games did Mariano blow? NONE! Gagne blew the 2003 All-Star Game - the first one that ever counted! I think they're both great relievers, and I'd personally rather have Mariano in the postseason. Nope, Gagne is better according to the national media!

They never give the Bombers credit where it is due. You'd think the Yankees only won because of dumb luck. You'd never think they're a good team, they're just winning on pure fortune. Oh wait - let's not forget the amazingly high payroll, which is legal by the way. Max Kellerman and Michael Kay are the only ones who bring this point up - nobody else. But I figured it out - since the majority of people who watch are outside the New York metro area, they will pander to the Yankee haters. Fox does it and ESPN does it although between the two of them ESPN may be the lesser of the evils. When NBC did playoff games, Bob Costas would do a great job of play-by-play and on-the-side commentary. Sure he had the scumbag Joe Morgan doing color, but at least it was pleasant to watch because you knew at least one person there was intelligent. When you hear Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, you want to have their broadcast booth bombed. When Fox signed that deal to have exclusive CS and World Series rights for all these seasons, that nearly gave me a heart attack - just imagine one guy controlling the entire local media in your town with no alternative voice? Fox and ESPN) hates the Yankees, and they would not be happy until the Yankees start finishing in last place again - make no mistake about it. God bless the person who thought of local coverage - otherwise we'd really be in trouble. See you next week friends.