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Rain has followed the Yankees around all season, so it is hardly a surprise that more wet weather is in the forecast for the team's final three home games of the season.

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Rain has followed the Yankees around all season, so it is hardly a surprise that more wet weather is in the forecast for the team?s final three home games of the season, all against the staggering Boston Red Sox. What impact any downpours may have on the tight wild-card race remains to be seen.

The Red Sox, who had a day off on Thursday, are scheduled to play the Yankees on Friday night, at 4 p.m. on Saturday and at 1 p.m. on Sunday. The AccuWeather forecast calls for showers and thunderstorms Friday and Friday night, some showers and thunderstorms on Saturday and a chance of more rain on Sunday.

For the Yankees, who have already clinched the American League East, this all feels like a rerun. They have had nearly two dozen games affected by the weather this season and eight games that have been postponed. On Sept, 6, they started a home game against the Baltimore Orioles at 11:08 p.m. after a four-hour rain delay and finished at 2:15 a.m.

The Red Sox are down to two reliable starting pitchers ? Josh Beckett and Jon Lester ? and probably wouldn?t mind four or five days of rain over the next week so they could skip everyone else in the rotation and just pitch those two.

1:20 amAs a Yankee fan living in Boston, I've watched this team and their fans pretty closely over the last decade or so, during their many highs and a few lows. Collectively they love nothing more than the cherished myth of their underdog status. It's almost like they dig themselevs into holes just so they can then have amazing comebacks (see 04 and 07 postseasons, and the start of this season). It's like the old James Brown routine where he'd seems exhausted and on the verge of collapse only to bust out again signing and dancing--and the crowd goes wild. They can't bring themselves to believe they are a filthy rich, powerhouse team with almost endless resources; they still like to believe they are a plucky gang of rag-tag outsiders, just trying to escape the clutches of the evil empire.

So now, even though they have a stocked team, huge payroll, and still have a 2 game lead with less than a week in the season and no head to head games with the teams chasing them, they are carving out this identity for themselves as the team on the verge of collapse that suddenly has a miraculous "comeback" and makes the playoffs!

When they started the year 0-6, the cure for their immediate troubles was a 3 game series against the Yankees, where they took 2 of 3. I wouldn't be surprised to see them do that again here to more or less cinch things. Even at their worst, they have hitters who always crush the Yanks: Pedroia, Ortiz, Ellsbury, and now Gonzalez. The Yankees meanwhile will be cautious and rest a lot of regulars.

7:17 amWho cares what either one of them do. Most of the folks like me are tired of baseball. If you have the money you can be in the world series. Simple at that. Just be sure and not let your kids get attached to Kansas City or life will be a real bore all summer. Thank goodness for football.

Well if that is your feelings on baseball then why on earth are you trolling about the Bats Blog? Stick with the NFL, if that is the sauce for your goose.

1st-rd. pick Brandon Nimmo discusses taking batting practice at Citi Field and 1st pro experience: http://t.co/67IMLT4S (He's from Wyoming)

Because of Sunday DH (and Game 2 14 innings,) all of NYY primary relievers worked. So today, TB most likely to see Noesi, Betances,etc.

It appears Raul Valdes has an excellent chance to be part of the Yankees' postseason roster at some point, to provide second bullpen lefty.

Manuel will do what he feels is right to get Lee/Oswalt ready for postseason--so you won't see 120-130 pitches. But you could see 100 or so.

Yankees' pitching strategy for TB series is to get ready for playoffs. In other words: TB is going to see a whole lot of B- and C-listers.

Jorge Posada has the catcher's gear on, working in outfield with Jesus Montero. Prepping for backup roles to Martin. Emergency roles really.

Kepner, who had covered the Yankees for The Times since 2002, is in his second year as the national baseball reporter. He joined The Times in 2000 as the Mets beat writer. A native of Philadelphia and a graduate of Vanderbilt University, Kepner has also covered the Angels for the Riverside Press-Enterprise in California and the Mariners for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and their four children. Follow Kepner on Twitter.

Waldstein is in his second season as the Mets beat writer. He came to The Times after nine years at The Star-Ledger of Newark, where he covered the Mets under Bobby Valentine and Art Howe. He was born and grew up in Boston and is married with three children.

Belson covers the business of sports after many years of writing about the business of practically everything else for the Times, Business Week, Reuters and Bloomberg. During his 12 years living in Tokyo, he wrote about baseball, kick boxing, marathon running and football in Japan. Since returning to the United States, he managed to persuade his wife, who grew up near the Yomiuri Giants' old stadium, to find it in herself to root for the Mets.

Sablich has produced news and multimedia for The New York Times since July 2006 after earning a master?s degree in new media from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He was born in Binghamton, N.Y. and resides in Queens. Sablich is still traumatized from his first trip to Yankee Stadium as a child when the Yankees starter Tim Leary was torched by the White Sox for 7 runs in one and two-thirds innings on Old-Timers' Day, July 15, 1990. Follow Sablich on Twitter.

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