The Yanks whomped the O’s, 12-3, last night, in a game that contained all sorts of good omens. My favorite underdog, Jason Giambi, hit his third homer in the past two days, and struggling pitcher Randy Johnson pitched great on three days rest. The Yanks are 1/2 a game behind the Orioles, four behind the Sox.

In the classic football film, The Replacements, Gene Hackman is asked by a TV reporter what his team needs to come back from a halftime deficit. “Heart,” he says. “We gotta have heart.” (Whereupon Keanu Reeves suits up for the second half and wins the game.)

The Yanks have enough talent to win it all. They just need to show some heart. Finally, it looks like they are.

And wouldn’t it be great if the Yankees came back to win the division after Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy flat-out declared that that the Sox would win it going away? “Come late September, this is going to look like Secretariat at the Belmont in 1973,” Shaughnessy wrote about four days ago.

”We’re going to the Series, boys!” shouted Kevin Millar in the locker room after the Sox beat the Phillies the other day. “The fucking Sox are on a roll!”

Getting a little ahead of yourselves, aren’t you, boys?

How incredibly great would it be the Sox pulled a catastrophic fold and didn’t even make the playoffs? Oh pleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod let it happen….