Friday: Yankees 6, Red Sux 3

• Was having lunch in a bar when some dude walked in offering two Loge (mezzanine) seats for face ($42 each). Figured we had a pretty good chance with Randy Johnson...

• Who was blah again. More walks (4) than strikeouts (3), only six innings pitched. The Big Unit's 5-3 with a 3.99 ERA — decent for pitchers not making $16 million a year. Yanks are 6-4 in the 10 games he's started, which translates to 97 wins over 162, so maybe it's not so bad.

• Gary Sheffield's three-run upper-deck home run to left field has to be one of the biggest crush-jobs I've ever seen live. I've witnessed maybe three land up there, and I don't think ever by a Yankee. That's our straight-up rollin' P-I-M-P.

• Dale Sveum will take some shit for getting two runners thrown out at home in consecutive at-bats, but he forced Tony Womack to make a perfect throw from an unfamiliar spot in left, and he ran Johnny Damon on rookie Robinson Cano's arm with two outs. That was an iffy decision, but not as bad as...

• Having lefty Alan Embree face Sheffield. There was a 99% chance of a ball being scaled somewhere.

• Nice job drawing seven walks from Tim Wakefield in five innings, but ya gotta get more than four hits off that junk. Then again, he is the pitcher we fared best against in three games.

• Starting my third beer in the fifth inning, the guy who sold me the tickets said, "Hey, Paul, you're hitting the bottle pretty good." Later he noted that the sky is blue.

Saturday: Red Sux 17, Yankees 1

• Thankfully, I missed most of this one, listening to the car radio up till 3-0, quick peek at the TV when it was 5-0, then nothing till I heard word of a 17-1 final with my belly bloated with beer and BBQ. That must have been a nightmare to attend but, having not been exposed to all those hits, which would have felt like 27 separate knife wounds, 17-1 wasn't worse than a close loss for these reasons:

1) In 2003 and 2004, we'd been no-hit by Houston and clobbered, 22-0, by Cleveland. Apart from inspiring week-long parties at ESPN.com, those embarrassing losses really had no long-term effects.

2) Without looking at a box score, I knew Joe Torre rested our best relievers for Sunday. (Which turned out to be a moot point.)

3) Teams usually don't follow up hit parades with another. Usually.

4) Get revenge on Sunday and nobody will care.

Sunday: Red Sux 7, Yankees 2

• Sat in Tier Reserved 3, nice view behind home plate, if closer to heaven than I ever expect to get when I'm dead.

• Mike Mussina's start was one of least-inspiring, least-effective stints I've ever seen. He labored for three innings, throwing 83 pitches and allowing nine baserunners, five earned runs and two home runs from David Ortiz that threatened the White House air space.

• When the Yankees tied the game at 2-2 in the first with solo shots from Derek Jeter and Sheffield — they just put a hurt on those line drives — the Stadium was up for grabs. Baseball crowds are usually a little ho-hum until the fifth or so. Not that night.

• We started Russ Johnson at first base in a nationally televised game against the Red Sox. And that's about the worst thing I could say about Jason Giambi.

Overall:

• I think it may have been my seat locations, good areas nestled among loyal season-ticket holders, but I there were hardly any Sux fans around me. I didn't notice any less in the Stadium overall, so I guess I was just lucky. I imagine things were pretty ugly in the stands Saturday afternoon, but it was pretty cool between the fans on Friday and Sunday, at least where I was at.

• Remember after four games when Hideki Matsui was hitting .438 with three home runs and everyone was talking him up as an MVP candidate? Well, he's hitting .260 now and is holding onto those three home runs for dear life. He's gone six straight games without an RBI. That .706 OPS sucks. But, for some reason, I still wouldn't mind him up in a big spot.

• Someone's gotta go back and research how we pitched to Ortiz the last time we got him out ... in 2002.

• We had 27 turns at bat and scored in four of them. That's horrible.

• God Bless America during the seventh inning stretch is pure comedy at this point. Everyone does their Ronan Tynan impersonation and it cracks me up. "Home, sweeeeeeeeeeet, hoooooooooooooooooooome!"

• Almost every Sux fan I saw at the Stadium was in his/her twenties. These are the fans who suffered for generations, right?

• Alex Rodriguez played kick-the-can with a couple of grounders, but it can't diminish my appreciation of this: .330 AVG, 17 HR, 49 RBI, .436 OBP, .659 SLG, 1.096 OPS.

• Interesting June schedule coming up, with potential patsies (Royals, Pirates, Devil Rays) mixed with some good clubs (Twins, Cardinals, White Sox, Orioles). I'd be up for another trip to Baltimore if anyone wants to play hooky for a game or two between June 27-29.

• Happy 33rd birthday today to Manny Ramirez. I hope his wish is for Curt Schilling to get his ankle stuck in a tree chipper, because that's mine.