(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Well, it's been a whole month, so I guess we were due to resume the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry.

As you'll no doubt recall, when last we met our heroes—or, at least the last time the Red Sox met them—they were a sad sack of a team, hovering about the .500 mark.

Xavier Nady, Brian Bruney and Alex Rodriguez were all on the Disabled List, and the ineffective Chien Ming Wang would soon join them, as would Jorge Posada.

To make things worse, none of their big name free agent acquisitions seemed to be panning out. Mark Teixeira was hovering around the Mendoza Line, while CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett both had ERAs around 5.00.

Additionally, the patchwork bullpen, put together mostly on the cheap from the Yankee farm system, had failed them miserably, allowing a composite ERA of almost 8.00 in their first five games against Boston, though they'd done mostly respectable work against the rest of the league.

That team lost all five of its early season contests against the Red Sox, with the starting pitching largely to blame, as they got only one Quality Start in those five games.

That performance—Andy Pettitte's six-inning, four-run (three earned) outing on April 26th—met those requirements in name only, and anyway the Yankees could do nothing with Justin Masterson that day.

The third inning of that game, when the Yankees had a 1-0 lead, marked the last time the Yankees have led the Red Sox in their season series, including last night's 7-0 loss.

The Sawx scored a run in the bottom of that inning and then three more in the fifth (including Jacoby Ellsbury's infamous steal of home plate) and have had no reason to look back since. Indeed, the Yankees have given them no reason to glance over their shoulder.

So, with the season series resuming Tuesday night, the Yankees had good reason to be in high spirits. They had Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada back, and Chien Ming Wang slated to start the second game of the series.

Mark Teixeira had found his stroke since A-Rod came off the DL, and several Yankees (Damon, Jeter, Cano, Cabrera) were hitting around .300, many of them with power. They sat atop the AL East, with the best record in the league coming into the game...

...and then they lost miserably.

A.J. Burnett, the big name pitcher who came up so very small against the the Yankees' biggest rival in April, managed to lower the bar for himself even more last night, allowing five runs (three earned) without escaping the third inning.

Granted, he's faced the toughest slate of hitters in MLB this year to date, but still, more is expected of a man who's earning more money than the gross domestic products of some small island nations.

Burnett's fastball was plenty fast, usually in the 95-96 mph range, but he seemed to have little idea (or interest) in where it would end up. Working quickly, as if to get it over with rather than to get batters out, Burnett threw 84 pitches—less than half of them for strikes—with his curve proving to be especially erratic.

He threw only five of 16 curveballs for strikes, and one of those was a single by Kevin Youkilis anyway.

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