The Yankees beat the Blue Jays 3-2 in the final regular season game of the 2004 season, giving New York 101 wins on the year. Not bad for an old team with lousy pitching, right? While no offensive player–with the exception of Hideki Matsui–had a career year, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, and Bernie Williams all had interesting, productive campaigns. Miguel Cairo, Ruben Sierra and Tony Clark were all valuable role players. While the pitching wasn’t as good as we’ve seen in recent years, Mariano Rivera had one of his greatest seasons, and Tom Gordon was terrific too. The return of Orlando Hernandez made for a good story, though his status for the post-season remains in doubt. Kevin Brown and Javier Vazquez and Mike Mussina have had their moments but overall, they’ve been inconsistent. Moose has been sharp of late and will start Game One. Along with the surprising El Duque, only Jon Lieber has pitched up to pre-season expectations.

As expected, the Yanks will host the Twins begining Tuesday night in the Bronx. They will have to deal with Johan Santana and Brad Radke, not to mention Minnie’s deep bullpen, and scrappy offense. For the first time in a long while, many prognosticators see the Yanks as ripe for the taking. While it is hard to disagree with the fact that New York’s pitching is indeed suspect, I’m sure the Twins–and their fans–aren’t getting ahead of themselves just yet.

It was sunny but chilly in New York today. It feels like the playoffs. Hopefully, there is still some good baseball ahead of us. Anyone excited yet? I’m feeling calm myself. Talk to me on Tuesday afternoon, and I’ll be jumping out of my skin, ready to go, geeked, but cautiously optimistic as always. It’ll be great to see the Yanks play in some big games again, but of course, Mr. Santana is waiting too. It won’t come easily for New York, but then again, if it were easy it wouldn’t be as much fun, right? Here’s to them being up for the challenge.

Lets go Yank-ees.