Yesterday, for the first time in recent memory, I asked myself a soul-coughing question: Am I rooting for the Yankees to beat the Rays? To quote David Byrne of Talking Heads, “How did I get here?”

The pecking order in the American League East has been more or less undisturbed for a decade. It’s pretty much gone Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Orioles, Devil Rays. Sure, the Red Sox have won two World Series titles in the last four years, and some of the bottom feeders have swapped musical chairs, but the Yankees won the division title every single year from 1998 to 2006, while the Red Sox finished second from 1998 to 2005. In short, no team besides New York or Boston has been a legitimate threat in the American League East since Jeffrey Maier was in grammar school. Now it’s mid May and the Yankees are in last, the Rays are in first, the Earth has tottered off its axis, and I don’t know who I’m supposed to be rooting for.