Holding out for at leat another week
Well I was just about to do a post that was broadly sympathetic to the themes expressed here and here when a Yankee fan (you know who you are) got me all upset... which leads to this post...
This hasn't been a great week for the Sox - a split series with the Indians who, despite being a strong pick for the AL Central in the pre-season, are a terrible team that everyone know's the Sox should sweep... and then a series loss to the Rays, who everyone knows that great teams either sweep or go home...
Well an exaggeration on both counts, but when combined with a trade deadline where the Sox did absolutely nothing, as the Yankees made two good pick-ups, has created a media momentum shift in favor of the Yankees, that makes these results harder to take... despte having a record that is 8 games worse than the Tigers, and continued question marks on a rotation that will need a miracle to succeed deep in the post season, ESPN rushed to annoint the Yankees the #1 team in baseball.
But there have been positives this last week - Ortiz and Manny continue to re-write Red Sox record books, Wells and Johnson continue to exhibut signs that they can contribute in the next couple of months... in the same way that there have been negatives - injuries to (apparently) every catcher in the Red Sox system, to Nixon and to Lowell, combined with the type of bump in the road that we should have all expected for Hansen and Delcarmen at some point - if those two get over the hump we are still fine, if they don't...
This week the Red Sox have 3 at the Royals, 3 at home to the Orioles while the Yankees travel to Chicago for 3, then 3 at home with the Angels... - if the Yankees increase their Division lead by going 6-0 that is one thing, if they increase that lead going 3-3 that is something else, but this is (for me anyway) a week to early to start worrying to greatly about the season ahead for the Sox.
posted by Neil Hay @ 1:28 am
2 threw a strike
2 threw a strike:
The pessimist in me told my daughter last night after the D-Ray fiasco, that the season is over. 24 hours later I still believe that. The loss of Tek hurts because I believe he was the butt kicker when it came to these type of games. The Bullpen just stinks and I include Papelbon, because all of his blown saves came in 1 run games. That makes him like 6 and 4 in saves in 1 run games, that is not good enough. My only hope is that they get to 95 wins (my early season predict).
You have jumped too early - I know things don't look great, but if I had offered you the Sox at 2 games back of the Yankees on August 7th pre-season you would have bitten my hand off.
Have to disagree about Papelbon - he has been way, way better than we could ever have dreamed of in that role. All closers are going to blow more 1 run games than 3 run games, the margin for error is just so much smaller - how many of those 1 run games has he actually gone on to lose?
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