Yankee fans should count their blessings they haven't had to watch John Lackey's struggles every fifth day. (AP)

On the eve of this weekend's Yankees-Red Sox series, I sat down and talked to Over the Monster's Marc Normandin and Matthew Kory for their weekly podcast. Thanks to the beer — we were celebrating with our India Pale Ales of choice, in honor of IPA Day (not that we needed an occasion to crack open a good cold one) — the conversation flowed freely. We gabbed for around an hour, most of it devoted to a good-natured dissection of the two teams' strengths and weaknesses, with a particular focus on the two rotations' strengths and weaknesses. While my initial hypothesis was that John Lackey and A.J. Burnett are in fact the same soul occupying two different bodies, the hosts pointed out a very important difference in their pitching styles, sending me scuttling back to the drawing board.

One caveat: there's a wee bit of salty language in there, so the easily offended or those with toddlers within earshot should consider themselves duly warned.