The Pride of Taiwan Won't Be Coming Back Soon

It looks like Chien-Ming Wang won't be riding in on white horse to save the Yankees season, with Joe Girardi nixing any hope of Wang returning from his injury to pitch in September.  This is another blow for my Yanks, who are banking on pitchers like Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson to keep their streak of twelve post-season appearances alive.  As for Wang, his disappearance from Yankees Universe has also rendered my parents (and probably millions of other Taiwanese people) apathetic about baseball.  

In fairness to Sidney Ponson, he was lights out yesterday, pitching a scoreless seven innings, only to have the Yankees bats go silent in a 1-0 loss to the Angels.  Goodness, if Sidney Ponson pitches shutout ball against the Angels, you have to win that game.  Thankfully, we're presently winning 5-2 with Mussina on the mound so we might take today's game.  We'd better.  Given tomorrow's matchup is John "I almost threw a no-hitter against the Red Sox on my last start" Lackey versus Darrell "what am I doing starting for the New York Yankees" Rasner, we might be looking at getting swept.

As I said to fervent Red Sox fan and friend Dave Chamberlain recently, I've pretty much conceded that this is the year that the post-season streak is going to end.  No Wang, Posada, Matsui, Hughes, or Kennedy for the bulk of the season.  There are hospitals that are healthier than the Yankees' roster.   If the Yankees somehow squeeze it out and make it, it'll be gravy.

Of course, there are two other interpretations of my concession to Dave.  First, I'm setting expectations low to protect myself from profound disappointment.  Second, the last thing I want to do is set myself up for gloating from a Red Sox fan.

Look, I have a couple of good friends who are big-time Boston sports fans, but can you think of a faster transformation of people turning from self-effacing lovable losers to pompous blowhards than Red Sox fans?