Yankees Still Have Texas' Number

It's beginning to feel a lot like 1996.
 
The red hot Rangers have now twice run into a red hotter Yankees team, handed a loss and forced to wonder just where all that came from.
 
The pieces certainly seem to fit: Power-packed Rangers team, first place in the American League West, relatively good pitching; and thoroughly outclassed by a team who, on paper, has no business running Texas out of the yard in such an ignominious manner.
 
But alas, we are here again.
 
The Rangers are 1-3 now, against the Yankees in 2009.
 
The only key differences between this 2009 season and that of 1996 are no consolation for your average Dallasite. First, that year began with a Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl win.
 
Also, the Rangers were in the neighborhood of .500 against the Bronx Bombers 13 years ago.
 
This could be a dark harbinger.
 
Really though, any fan that has hopped off the bandwagon with great abandon is as guilty of jumping the gun as those chauvinists who called a World Series Championship after the season's first game.
 
As hot as the Rangers are, the simple fact is that the Yankees are hotter. And, good or bad, eventually, hot streaks come to an end.