Not too much from Paul Pasqualoni's Thursday conference call.

• No injuries or depth chart changes.


• Martin Hyppolite is practicing, and has confidence in his knee, but Pasqualoni says it's too early to say whether or not he'll play. Hard to believe he'll be used this week. It takes time to get back into game shape, and used to game speed. Pasqualoni wouldn't say much about his running backs. Lyle McCombs has been the featured back, the question is where does D.J. Shoemate fit in, if at all? "We'd like to have balance," Pasqualoni said. "We sure would. At the end of the day, it's who's hot?"


• Johnny McEntee will start at quarterback, but we knew that. Stop me if you've heard this one before, but all three will be ready if needed.

Last night was a great night for baseball. As a Yankees fan, I'm not about to rub it in about the Red Sox. But enough with comparing this collapse to 1978, at least from a fan's perspective. "This is what it felt like in '78...The Sawx are CHO-KAHS!" Come on. In 1978, it had been a full 60 years since the Red Sox had won a title. There was every reason to believe in curses. Now? Boston hasn't made the playoffs the last two years, but its still won two of the last eight World Series. No need to whine, though I think most Sox fans would rather wallow in their misery.

I actually watched more of the Red Sox game than the Yankees last night for the first time in my life -- even missed the entire Tampa Bay comeback. Couple observations. Papelbon always stuck me as a phony, and his postgame interview from Tuesday's big save kind of confirmed that. He mentioned how, "if you looked at my face, I was smiling a little. I love those situations", or something to that effect. Yeah, you looked like a regular Slappy White out there. Wonder if he thought he was smiling last night, too. Also, not a routine play by any means, but a pretty half-hearted effort by Carl Crawford on Andino's single. Be decisive in what you're going to do.

Finally, Sox fans should be pumped about Ryan Lavarnway. I covered him a few times when he was at Yale, and followed his progress through the minors. With his ability to hit for power and average, his greatly improved catching skills (he was an outfielder, and only switched to catcher for his last two seasons at Yale) and his smarts, the kid has a chance to be a great player in Boston for the next 15 years.