More From Hank On Yanks Slow Start

Anyone who thought Hank was going to flip his lid after this weekend's 2-game sweep at the hands of the crosstown rival Mets (I did) was wrong. He is surprisingly calm, even after the embarrassing loss on Sunday. So calm I'm starting to wonder if he's actually a Steinbrenner.

"You can't be mad at this point," Steinbrenner told the AP Monday night after watching the Class-A Tampa Yankees play Vero Beach. "I just think eventually they'll go on a streak where they have a good record. They'll go on a tear. There's no question, eventually it will happen."

And he had this to say to the New York Times' Tyler Kepner:

“I don’t know that we know,” Steinbrenner said. “I don’t think, truthfully, anybody knows exactly who’s going to be where in the American League. Only two teams among the favorites are doing anything right now, and that’s the Red Sox and the Angels. We’re not doing well, Detroit’s not doing well, Cleveland’s not doing that great. The A.L. is a little topsy-turvy.

“I don’t know if we need to make any trades. We’ll see what happens, but I think the days where you can get a Cone or a Duque or a Wells may be over. We didn’t get Santana, so we’ve got to deal with what we have, and we’ll do the best that we can and keep building.”

“The bottom line is we can easily still win the division, we can get the wild card, and we’ll see what happens from there,” Steinbrenner said.

He added: “We’re going to be all right this year. I think we’re going to make a run at it. We’re in much better striking position than we were last year, and there’s no way all these guys – forget about Rodriguez and Posada – Cano, Cabrera, Giambi, Abreu, all the other guys – are not going to at least approach what they did last year.

“And when they start getting on a tear, we’ve got the starting pitching settled, and the bullpen’s great, we’re going to be really tough by the end of the year. I’m very, very confident.”

Last week he's talking about next year and now he's saying they can easily win the division. I don't really know what he truly believes, but I prefer the optimistic Hank.

In this article, also written by Tyler Kepner, Hank also said he remains confident in Joe Girardi, and that “he’s doing fine.“ And he also said that if Brian (Cashman) wants to be the G.M. next year, there’s a chance he will be." Which basically means if they win and Cashman wants to be the GM next year he will be, and if they don't win, he won't. OK, I guess he is a Steinbrenner after all.