The Songs Remain The Same.

Song 1: Joe Must Go!

Seven game winning streak. Nice. But I'm not going into weather vane mode like everyone else. If Joe deserved to be fired two weeks ago (and he so did), then he deserves to be fired now (and he so does). All the things that suck about the way he manages (as I look at tonight's lineup -- Nieves catching, Posada DHing, no Melky) still suck. And still will.

Doesn't matter if we win seventeen in a row. Fire Joe, sooner, rather than later. No one else will say it now that we're temporarily playing better.

Cowards.

Song 2: The Closer You Look, The Better We Look

I happened to be in the car at lunchtime today and thus caught a little bit of Chris Russo on WFAN. Russo claims to hate the Yankees, but there's no oomph behind it, because you can't truly hate the Yankees unless you love the Mets or the Red Sox, and Russo loves neither. His shtick is being anti all the New York teams while doing a show on New York radio. I guess he feels it makes for "good radio," and after all these years the idiot fans still fall for it, so I guess it does make for good radio.

Today, Russo was downplaying the Yankees' chances . . . based on how good Cleveland and Detroit and Boston and Seattle are. The idea being that we have to many teams to get past.

And for a little extra bonus, Russo was factually wrong when he talked about how the Yankees had picked up "four games" on Boston but how Boston had righted the ship of late. Um, it's five games, loser. It was 14 1/2, now it's 9 1/2. It's a small small thing but I have to bring it up, since Russo is the ultimate hair-splitter.

Russo, please.

1. Seattle is a mediocre team, at best, currently playing as well as they possibly can. It won't last.

2. Detroit is good but not nearly as good as Russo was trying to make them. Who knows if Kenny Rogers returning is a lift, or not? Especially (presumably) if he's not cheating this year? Who's to say their bullpen gets past these injuries and just picks right up where they left off? Their lineup is pretty good, but not the Murderer's Row Russo was painting it to be. Russo procalimed that Verlander will be a "perennial 20-game winner." I almost crashed the car I laughed so hard -- could be win 20 once before you make that kind of pronouncement? Oh wait, as Russo reminded us, he also predicted that Mark Pryor would be a "perennial 20-game winner."

3. Cleveland is inconsistent on all levels and is hardly a lock to stay in the race.

4. Boston's biggest advantage right now is the size of their lead. It will be difficult for them to be caught, just based on mathematics. But Boston is hardly a flawless outfit -- their bullpen is not strong (and while Papelbon can be a dominant closer, he can't be the closer on consecutive nights, so his impact is limited by that), their lineup outside of Manny and Ortiz can be pitched to (the brief Dustin Pedroia hot streak is over already), and their starters outside of Beckett are a mixed bag -- Schilling is not the same, Wakefield, like all knuckleballers, ends up a .500 pitcher when all is said and done (and the Yankees murder him, of late), at some point Julian Tavares will wake up and realize that he actually sucks, and Dice-K thus far has benefited greatly by the Red Sox seemingly scoring 19 runs every time he pitches. Plus, I think there's a good chance that the real Beckett shows up in the second half of the season.

It definitely was fun listening to Chris Russo whistling through the graveyard today.