Hey everyone, it's been a busy summer for me so far. I got married and my wife Margie and I have gone on a road tour through middle America. It's been quite interesting. We went through a lot of small towns. I've coached pitchers in Hannibal, Missouri; I've spoken in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; I've appeared at the Bob Feller museum; I did the Futures Game on XM radio in St. Louis, and then I had a very unusual experience which I don't know how many Yankee or YES fans are aware of, but I filled in for Jerry Remy doing Red Sox games on NESN last weekend in Toronto.

What's kind of interesting is that each side, of course, calls the other side "The Dark Side" and I got some really nice feedback from Yankees fans who live in New England that had heard the games and were perfectly OK with me filling in for Jerry.

I was the 23rd different partner that Don Orsillo has had. It was kind of fun. I'm good friends with Terry Francona and a lot of the Red Sox people, so even though there's a deep-seeded hatred between the fans, it's hard for me to share that hatred because I know some of the people there and they're good people. A lot of the Red Sox feel the same towards the Yankees as individuals.

That was kind of an unusual experience and now my tour through middle America is coming to an end, where I'll be anchored in one place, and actually my next two assignments with MLB are Yankees games. I'll be doing the White Sox-Yankees next Thursday here in Chicago, and in two weeks I'll do the Yankees-Red Sox game at Yankee Stadium.

I had made a lot of these commitments this summer that I wanted to honor. We've been on kind of a whirlwind trip, and for example I had promised Roland Hemond, who was my general manager on the White Sox when I played for them, that I would go to Hannibal and take a look at the college pitchers there in what's called "the prospect league," a summer wood-bat league. I also agreed to appear in a school in Sioux Falls just to speak and sign autographs, and then went to the Feller museum. I'm going from here up to my hometown in Michigan where they have a little league ballpark named for me. I started a fund to erect lights there in my late wife MaryAnn's name, to whom I'm dedicating a plaque next Monday. Then my commitments are kind of over and I will get back to I guess what we call our normal lifestyle.

Through all of my travels I've been specifically following both the Yankees and Red Sox. It's kind of interesting how they've kind of gone in different directions. Even though the Yankees have yet to beat the Red Sox in a regular-season game (0-8), they've got a two-and-a half game lead in the AL East. The Red Sox have many concerns. They have a couple of their pitchers, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Tim Wakefield, on the DL. They called up Clay Buchholz, and he had one good start and then he didn't do well in his last start. Their bullpen has had a couple of hiccups since they were so effective early in the year.

Then you compare that to the Yankees, who just seem like they were sputtering along and then all of a sudden they have gelled. It looks like Phil Hughes has been slotted in to the eighth-inning role nicely. The Yankees offense has picked up. Their starters have been consistent, so right now, despite their winless record against their rivals, they have the upper hand, looking at the last 60-65 games of the year.

The percentages say that they're probably going to win at least half of these upcoming games, especially when you consider the fact that right now the Red Sox are in a little bit of disarray. There's only two weeks to go before the big Yankees-Red Sox series and things can change a lot until then, but the Red Sox have not hit well consistently. That's the difference between the 2008 and 2009 Red Sox. Guys like Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis had many big hits last season. This season a major problem has been not hitting in the clutch and they readily admit that themselves.

This division is going to be a race till the end. This could be an AL East that has three teams with 90-plus wins. The Rays are still in this race. I think it's by far the best division and the AL is the strongest league. If you took the Angels, who are a good solid team and out them in the AL East playing those East teams on a regular basis, I don't know if their record would be that good. I think if you took the Yankees, Red Sox, or Rays and put them in the Central or the West, they would be pretty hard to beat them. Anyone of those three would end up winning that division. I know the Yankees have struggled against the Angels, but again, if the Angels had to play Tampa, New York and Boston on a consistent basis it might be a different story.

Let's focus in on the Yankees now and last year. At this time we were blogging about the flaws that the Yankees had and subsequently they didn't make the playoffs. This team is deep now and I think you start with CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. With those two guys at the top of the rotation the team is much better right there. Also, having Andy Pettitte around helps. He hasn't had the greatest year, but still has that experience where he can crank up a good game or two for them at the right time. It looks like they have the bullpen organized now with Hughes into that eighth-inning role, along with Phil Coke and Alfredo Aceves.

From an offensive standpoint, Nick Swisher's added a lot of energy and has done a lot of good things for them, like what Mark Teixeira has done to the middle of the order. Last year psychologically they were almost in a state of shock to think that they might not make the playoffs and they didn't, whereas this year there's some added motivation. I don't think they're taking anything for granted, nor has anybody else taken for granted that the Yankees will be in the playoffs, but I think because of the reasons I just mentioned, they will be playing baseball in October.