The AL East has basically been treating the White Sox like children being leveraged in a divorce case custody hearing, with the Red Sox and Yankees acting of course as the embattled parents spitting vitriol at each other across the courtroom. For the past four days, New Yorkers were right there in lockstep with the Southsiders, feverishly cheering on the ChiSox in between wondering if this was the same team that had almost swept us a few weeks ago.

Nice work on Thursday taking down the Cy Young candidate from Boston. He’s a tough one. And I say this only half sarcastically since the kid was so “overpowering” (yep just threw up in my mouth) that the Yankees’ bats couldn’t have hit water if they fell off a boat. So by the transitive property, we should be terrified of Chicago right now. You teed off on the pitcher that completely blanked us. Which is a tautology that probably only has an ounce of legitimacy if you’re Michael Scott.

After spending the last four days texting my good buddy and diehard Chicago fan things like “Thanks for Danks!” etc, the lovefest is gone. Tonight, our resident exercise in “If eventual morbid obesity is cool, then call me Miles Davis,” goes up against Chicago’s resident exercise in “My last name looks like a row of Scrabble tiles. Also, I also pitched a perfecto about 128 years ago.”

And somewhere ESPN has a hit out on the scheduling mastermind behind that one that prevented them from airing a MEGA PITCHERS’ DUEL for Sunday night baseball, and settling for an Atlanta-Philly matchup instead.

(I think, in all seriousness, if I had to listen to the triumvirate of semi-retarded muppets in the ESPN broadcast booth for the 2nd weekend in a row, I’d impale myself on a sharpened Louisville Slugger without batting an eye.)

The last time these two met, Melky hit for the cycle, Buehrle [sic?] got knocked around, and CC saved us from a four-game sweep and started his current six-game winning streak. I don’t know what it is about Round Boy’s starts, but in the games he’s won, the Yankees’ offense is loaded for bear, having scored an average of 7 runs a game in his 15 Ws.

Conversely, David Cone Buehrle is 0-4 with a 6.21 ERA in his 6 starts post-perfecto.

Against the Yankees: 0-4 with a 12.23 ERA in his last 5 starts, with a 1-9 career record.

(Actually, that may explain why ESPN isn’t too disappointed about not getting this matchup for the Sunday night game.)

After Friday, the head-to-heads between pitchers become less hype-worthy, I guess. But I may just be saying that because Sergio Mitre is going against “Undecided,” and unless the latter turns out to be an amoeba, he probably has the edge over the former. Unfortunately, the only thing undecided about our starter Saturday is whether his pitches will decide to actually sink instead of hanging longing enough to establish democracy in a third world country.

Sunday we’re looking at Joba vs. Freddy Garcia. I hate Joba and am nearly certain his arm is going to fall off not from pitch counts but from fist pumping. If everyone’s so worried about preserving his arm, how about we put the kibosh on his Cirque du Soleil gyrations post-strikeout? I’m a minority in the anti-Joba school of thought, but after he got destroyed on Tuesday, he’s got a lot of redemption work to do when he closes out the series.

As for “Big Game” Freddy Garcia. . . well, he’s not very good.

So between Joba’s arm that brings to mind memories of rolling a Play-Doh worm with my finger until it severs in half, and Garcia’s chunky 6.25 ERA, this game is going to be like watching a WNBA Dunk Contest where no one can actually dunk so the judges settle for bank shots.

And there’s the weekend, kicking off tonight: Buehrle minus his no-no generator and CC minus his metabolism. Both teams have been a bit shaky in the field lately, but in fairness, let’s give the offensive edge to NY here. Two-run games like their Thursday loss don’t generally sit well with this lineup, and I’m expecting a big weekend from Damon, Teixeira, and even A-Rod. The top of our lineup has been killing it, and statistically speaking, New York leads the league in runs, hits, RBIs, slugging, OBP, total bases, etc.

Perhaps an equally big series for both teams, the games will be determined by unrelenting offense (since I don’t think either club can rest on their pitching laurels), and subsequently our fielders’ speed. A six-game leg up isn’t as comfortable as a seven- or eight-game one, and like an incorrigible divorcee with insatiable greed, the Yanks are looking to use the Sox as a springboard for a bigger lead.

More importantly, they need to go on a streak. They’re 5-5 in their last 10, and if they make the playoffs, their record will be immaterial if they don’t know how to engender momentum.

So it was nice cheering you guys on while we could, but now the Yankees subscribe to the six words uttered about 108 million times in one week of reality tv alone:

See ya in the Bronx, Sox.

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Kris Pollina runs the excellent Crazy Yankee Chick blog, and has been known to curse a thing or two from a certain other east coast metropolis that dare not speak its name. She lives in New York City.