Yankees Are Arsenalesque in Loss to Orioles

Falling behind 5-2 in the top of the 7th. At home. To a team you should beat 9 times out of 10. Clawing back to 5-4. Getting the leadoff man to 2nd in the bottom of the 9th. Having the tying run on 3rd and the winning run on 2nd. And losing anyway. Partly because of your manager's what-the-hell substitutions.

Last night, the Yankees reminded me an awful lot of recent Arsenal.

Baltimore Orioles 5, Yankees 4, in the opener of a 3-game series at Yankee Stadium II. WP: Miguel Gonzalez (3-2) -- a 28-year-old Mexican who never got to the majors until this year, never even got to Triple-A until last year (where, at 3 different levels combined, was 0-7), and is the proverbial "pitcher the Yankees have never seen before" and can't beat. SV: Jim Johnson (31). LP: Freddy Garcia (4-5).

The Yankees hit 3 homers, but it wasn't enough: Raul Ibanez hit his 14th in the 5th, and in the 7th, back-to-back jacks by Eric Chavez, his 9th, and Ichiro Suzuki, his 5th, his 1st in a Yankee uniform, and the 100th of his career.

I guess it's appropriate that the Yankees reminded me of recent Arsenal. After all, tonight is the night when the New York Red Bulls host Arsenal's arch-rival Tottenham Hotspur.

The Premier League's teams have not done well on their North American tours. Spurs, using mostly their starting XI, could only manage draws against the Los Angeles Galaxy, who are the defending MLS Champions, but are now midtable and couldn't call on Landon Donovan and David Beckham due to their selection for the MLS All-Star Game; and a mostly-reserve Liverpool side in Baltimore, a Liverpool team that barely scraped a draw against Toronto FC, the worst team in MLS this season, a team which probably would struggle in England's League One (3rd division).

Spurs will be without the Welsh chimp Gareth Bale: After begging out of "Team Great Britain" for the Olympics due to injury, he played for Spurs on this tour, and now he's hurt. Serves the diving cheating simian bastard right.

The Red Bulls should have their big gun, the Arsenal legend, the man who always had Spurs for lunch (or, in this case, dinner): Thierry Henry. Plus the Australian connection of Kenny Cooper and the newly acquired Everton man Tim Cahill.

Nine hours to go.  Beat The Scum!