The real Yankee season starts tonight

Light the flame. Let the games begin. 

The first Boston/NY battle of 2026 - our forever war - brings old and new realities. Here are 10...

1. Thursday, we'll glimpse the true Cam Schlitter. His start in Fenway, the lions' den, will attract every taunt, every threat, known to humanity and its offshoot species. It will be his second start against Boston, since strangling them in last year's playoffs. Schlittler looks like a future Yankee ace, a bedrock arm, an all-star starter. Thursday night, we will know.

2. Okay, sorry if I just heaped another payload of fertilizer onto Schlittler's shoulders, but fukkit: Pressure is the oxygen of this rivalry, and nobody gets out alive. No matter how the first two games go, Schlitter's appearance will be the Coachilla moment when Sabrina Carpenter introduces Madonna - enough raw chlamydia to douse the planet. Nobody escapes. 

3. Wait: One person did escape: Redsock revenge darling Sonny Gray tweaked a hammy and is out for two weeks. Too bad. Just in time. 

4. Redsocks will start two lefties, forcing Aaron Boone to gag on the Ben Rice conundrum. The Yankiverse wants Rice at 1B, but our manager is the Gene Mauch of Bobby Valentines. Gotta believe he'll go with Paul Goldschmidt. Let's hope Goldy is up to it. He chose to play in NY. He knew what he was doing. As Bugs and Daffy would sing, "This is it, the night of nights..."  

5. In the lost, fun-time years of the Curse, also known as the 90s, the mighty Yankees often lost their first series against Boston. This magnified our enjoyment when September arrived, and we beat their pasty asses. Those joyful days ended 20 years ago. In this millennium, it's the Yankees who need to prove themselves. And if we get blown out this week, April meant nothing, and they have the better team.   

6. Luis Gil, the weakest link in our rotation, starts tonight. You couldn't write a worse scenario, in terms of heaping pressure on Schlittler. 

7. Breathe. Even if they're swept, the Yankees will still lead Boston.

8. A Redsock victory will put, as they say in the Red Bull commercials, "wings on their feet." It could also rescue Caleb Durbin, thus far, a huge disappointment. 

9. This series also offers potential Yankee resets. Giancarlo Stanton can start over, with Ryan McMahon and Jazz Chisholm.

10.  MLB schedulers screwed the Yankees by playing Thursday at night. No afternoon getaway. We won't see Boston again until June 5. Missing the entire month of May. By then, Cole and Rodon. And a new tweak by Sonny. Such a different world?