I was at the Nu Stadium last night for the Yankees’ 13-6 demolition of the Red Sox, and aside from witnessing a bunch of brave dudes screaming “cocksucker” at Jacoby Ellsbury for 3+ hours and Jorge Posada’s uncanny Jeremy Giambi impersonation in the 2nd inning, the most notable thing about the evening was the monumentally poor performance from Boston pitcher John Smoltz.

“the Braves were probably right in their decision to not re-sign Smoltz” writes Nick “No Shit, Sherlock” Cafardo of the Boston Globe, who takes a far more diplomatic tone towards the former Atlanta starter reliever than Red from Surviving Grady (“having that automatic shitshow in the rotation–in combination with the many automatic outs in our line-up–is going to send me to an early grave”)

Not that there’s a lot of feel-goodery about this team right now. I secretly hoped we’d be welcoming Roy Halladay to the team, but instead we got Paul Byrd. Ortiz is literally a shadow of his 2007-ish self. Green and Lowrie actually have me getting sentimental for Lugo. My gut ties into knots whenever Penny or Papelbon or Buchholz takes the hill. And that little voice in my head–the one I try to block out with smoked meats and cheap beer–keeps telling me that this is just one big, expensive and ultimately mediocre team, with two legitimate starters and just two or three bats that you can truly depend on.

Ortiz was roundly booed in each plate appearance last night and at one point was greated with a banner reading “Lil’ Papi Needs His Juice?” You’ve got to hand it to Yankee fans — they’re not the type to let PED allegations against a handful of their players (A-Rod, Clemens, Pettitte, Mitre, Sheffield, Kevin Brown, Jason Giambi, Jason Grimsley, Mike Stanton, David Justice — am I leaving anyone out?) change their reasonable perspective(s).