Hank’s Gauntlet

Hank Steinbrenner just keeps going and going. This time, he’s talking about the Yanks-Mets series this weekend, making reference to Johan Santana (which Hank clearly sees as a missed opportunity) and if that wasn’t enough, he decides to go even further into the future and has already begun talking about next year (confident much?):

“To me, it’s not any added significance because Santana is pitching. We want to win, it’s that simple,” Steinbrenner said. “We’re both kind of struggling. We just need to win. They just need to win. We just need to keep putting wins in the win column. We’ve got to start racking up some runs.”

Steinbrenner will likely watch Friday’s game on TV in Florida, but could be at Yankee Stadium over the weekend.

“I think there is a very good chance I might go up there,” he said.

Steinbrenner, in his first season overseeing the team’s baseball operations, expects the Yankees to put together a hot streak, which has become a trademark in recent years.

“We’re going to do everything we can turn to it around this year,” Steinbrenner said. “I guarantee we’ll get his thing straight next year.”

Wasn’t this the guy who was talking about being patient during the offseason?

It’s only May 14th and Hank sounds sort of like a bad fantasy baseball player, ready to call it quits and trade his whole team after a few bad weeks. Everyone, including the talkative owner, needs to relax, because things will sort themselves out just like they did last year. And, hell, if they don’t, at least Hank is letting us know that he’ll be making some splashy moves for 2009 (Teixeira and Sabathia) that could hopefully help the team with their dreadfully slow starts.