By TERRY NAU

Sports editor

This would not seem like a good week for Yankee fans to put in an early order for those pinstriped vanity license plates proposed by a R.I. legislator earlier this week. Not when their team just lost three in a row to the Red Sox and is 0-8 against Boston this season.
Yankee fans are better off laying low for a few weeks. They (we) can take solace in the fact that pennant races are never won in June. In this century, it’s usually late July when things get serious and general managers start plugging holes in their roster at the trade deadline.
There are two historic  pennant races between the Red Sox and Yankees that serve as emotional templates for the fans of both teams. In 1978, Boston took a 14½-game lead over New York into early August. And in 2004, the Red Sox seemed dead when the Yankees swept a July series in New York while ailing Boston shortstop Nomar Garciaparra sat mournfully on the bench. Boston was 10 games behind at the time and still reeling from Aaron Boone’s walk-off homer in Game 7 of the ALCS in 2003.
History tells us that the 1978 Yankees and the 2004 Red Sox came storming back after being written off by media and their own fans. Today, we hear talk of how the Yankees can’t beat the Red Sox, and yet they were only two games out of first place on June 12. Let the hyper-critical New York media write off the Yankees this weekend. The players are professional athletes and they will do what pros do. You play the schedule and try to win every game. In baseball, if you win three of five, you’re in the playoffs.
What did the 1978 Yankees and 2004 Red Sox do to turn their seasons around? The Yankees fired their fiery manager, Billy Martin, in late July and replaced him with mellow Bob Lemon, who provided a calming influence similar to what Joe Torre invoked in the same job two decades later.
The 2004 Sox made a big trade at the deadline, moving Nomar out of town and replacing him with an enthusiastic shortstop named Orlando Cabrera who played the best baseball of his career over the final two months of the season, igniting a Boston surge that culminated with their ALCS comeback from three games down against the Yankees.
Both of those championship teams were filled with gnarly veterans who refused to quit. Boston had a great team in 1978 that fell apart under the strain of injuries, internal issues revolving around manager Don Zimmer, and the constant pressure of the onrushing Yankees, who played nearly .750 baseball over the final two months. There were two championship teams competing in the summer of 1978 and one of them went uncrowned. There was no wild-card salvation in 1978.
The 2004 Red Sox got their act together in August and pushed the Yankees in September, setting the stage of a rematch in the ALCS. You could make the case that Boston had the better team in 2003 and lost only because its manager, Grady Little, had no faith in his bullpen in Game 7.
The 2004 Yankees added Alex Rodriguez and Gary Sheffield to the mix and probably had the better team all season long. But when it came to closing out Boston, these Yankees revealed a lack of toughness that has remained with the franchise ever since. The 2005-2009 Yankees have failed to win even one playoff series. And their subservience to Boston is becoming a fact of life.
For the Yankees, the road to the World Series now goes through Boston. Even the stalwart veterans like Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada understand this. They see the role reversal between the two franchises more clearly than anyone else. The Yankees won four World Series between 1996 and 2000 because they had a well-rounded pitching staff filled with relievers who could throw strikes and get outs in pressure situations. Now it is Boston that owns the best pitchers. Many of them have been developed in the farm system, or are still growing down on the farm.
The Red Sox have also redefined the character of their team in 2009, having dispensed with the recalcitrant Manny Ramirez last summer and replaced him with a “gamer” named Jason Bay who fits nicely into the fabric of this team.
This Boston squad is led by Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia. They are the cornerstone of a team that gives all-out effort from the first pitch to the last. Youk and Pedey lead by example, diving for balls in the field and working the count at the plate, wearing pitchers down with their tenacity before either taking a walk or hitting a line drive.
These Red Sox hit when it counts, with runners on base. The 2009 Yankees have the more talented lineup but they don’t hit when it counts against Boston. That’s one of the reasons why they are 0-8 against Boston this season.
Maybe it really just comes down to pitching. Boston’s hitters can find a way to beat New York’s best pitchers. They hung close to CC Sabathia on Thursday night before striking at the weakness of the Yankees – their bullpen. They took the heart out of the Yankees in their first meeting of the season back in April when Jason Bay tagged Mariano Rivera for a game-tying homer with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Right now, it looks like Boston owns the Yankees. But this is a new kind of pennant race where teams can reload in late July, feeding off the little fish at the bottom of the sea. Maybe the Yankees will find a relief pitcher to bridge the gap to Mariano.
Or, perhaps, this young Boston team just keeps getting better and better and pulls away to a comfortable A.L. East title. Only time will tell.