Sox season so far - the 80 game edition

In the last 20 games, the Sox went 14-6 and took over first place in the AL East - I really doubt that I will have to say that they are looking up to the Orioles in the standings again this year, but I am not yet confident that the home team 9 will not be looking up to the Yankees at some point in the not too distant future.

Part of the reason for that pessimism is the fact that the Sox started those 20 games 12-2, and (I hear your minds whirring) finished that stretch 2-4, with tough series losses to the Indians and Blue Jays, on the back of pretty poor pitching from the bullpen - 7, 12, 2, 15, 4, 5 and 6 aren't my lucky numbers, they are the number of runs the Sox have given up in the last 7 days - guess which two were wins?

In my 60 game edition, Theo had just given his "if this is the best they can pitch" statement - and for 2 weeks, it looked as if his words had worked, but sadly it now looks as if those 2 weeks were the aberration, rather than the 10 weeks before that - did someone scream sample size?

In the last week the Sox have started the internal audition phase of the bullpen changes - Matt Mantei has headed to the DL, Keith Foulke may be joining him, Abe Alvarez came up to have a quick look at the Fenway bullpen bench (he did warm up at one point - I saw him with my own two eyes) before heading back to Pawtucket, while Jeremi Gonzalez and Lenny DiNardo joined the pen for the current roadtrip - presumably the plan was that one of them would retreat to Pawtucket when Curt rejoined the rotation in Baltimore, but given his "frustrating" outing last night, this no longer seems a sure thing.

In addition to these auditions, you would have to assume that Theo has also reached the conclusion that this team cannot hope to win it all with this bullpen, and that a very large part of his life at present is taken up with calls to other GM's to discuss who might be available at what price. The next of these reviews will be posted around the 27th of July - only 4 days to the trading deadline. I will be very surprised if the Sox bullpen does not have at least one or two completely new names by that time.