Our weekly look at one item tying together each of the Red Sox' AL East opponents looks at the New York Yankees, whose offense looks its usual potent self but whose rotation still has question marks.
Real: New York led all of baseball in runs scored last year even though many of its big guns had off seasons. Two of those in that category were Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez, both of whom had very good numbers but significant decreases in a handful of categories. Although Teixeira's average fell to .200 with an 0-for-5 effort on Saturday, he already has four home runs and 10 RBIs. Rodriguez had an excellent spring and appears to be locked in early, and with Robinson Cano already in midseason form, the 3-4-5 gauntlet is looking every bit like the best in baseball.
Fake: Phil Hughes looks nothing like the 18-game winner that the Yankees were hoping to take the next step. In fact, he hasn't for several weeks, throwing with decreased velocity and almost no bite on his breaking pitches since early in spring training. However, the club says there is nothing physically wrong with him, and he is making all of his side sessions and feeling just fine. If we are to believe that, then this could just be a prolonged dead arm period for Hughes, who has given up 11 runs and struck out one in six innings so far.
