Thedatch
08-08-2006, 11:24 AM
by Murray Chass, douchebag reporter.
THE Boston Red Sox are a poor excuse for a good baseball team. For the second year in a row, they have squandered an advantage they had over the Yankees, this year even more grievously than last. Like last year, they will very likely pay for their profligacy.
For the first four days in July, the Red Sox led the Yankees by four games in the American League East. Today, the Yankees lead the Red Sox by two games.
•A 12-game winning streak gave the Red Sox their four-game lead. Since that streak ended, the Red Sox have won half of their games — 17 of 34 — while the Yankees have won 22 of 32.
Plenty of time left in the season, plenty of games remaining on the schedule, including nine with each other? Certainly. But by now, the Red Sox should have had a commanding lead over the Yankees. But they don’t have that lead, even though the Yankees have played much of the season without a third of their starting lineup.
Hideki Matsui hasn’t played since May 11, Gary Sheffield last played May 29 and Robinson Canó has been out of the lineup since June 25. They have missed a combined 170 games, or 17.5 percent of the games the nine-man starting lineup has played.
Some may say Alex Rodriguez has been missing, too. On top of the absences of Matsui, Sheffield and Canó, Rodriguez is having a lackluster season, making three errors in one game and striking out three and four times in others. The youngest player to hit 450 home runs, Rodriguez has hit only one home run in his past 14 games and three in his last 29.
Randy Johnson, the Yankees’ putative No. 1 starting pitcher, has been erratic at best, allowing five runs or more in more than a third of his starts and struggling through the season with a 5.11 earned run average, placing him 83rd among 112 pitchers with 15 starts or more.
Bruised and bloodied, the Yankees have been winning with players named Melky and Bubba. With only a third of the season to go, they have won more than the Red Sox, who until catcher Jason Varitek had knee surgery last week, had not dealt with the extended absence of an everyday player.
This season’s developments should come as no surprise to the Fenway faithful. They saw it most recently only last season, when the Red Sox were six and a half games ahead of the Yankees barely a month into the season. Less than three weeks later, they had tumbled behind the Yankees.
Considering that the Yankees played dreadfully in their first 30 games (11-19), it was noted here at that time that “the Red Sox should have taken off and left the Yankees in the dust.”
“Take that six-and-a-half-game advantage over their nemesis and build it to such a level that the Yankees would be recalling the days of Horace Clarke and Jerry Kenney.”
Furthermore, I wrote, the Red Sox might have to win the division championship to get to the playoffs because their coveted wild-card spot might not be available to them. They were in danger of losing out to the second-place team from the A.L. Central.
The Fenway faithful responded in outrage, acting as if the wild card was their birthright, and anyway, what did it matter if the Red Sox finished first or won the wild card? The playoffs were the playoffs. A team only had to get there to have a chance to win. They were the wild card in 2004, weren’t they, when they won the World Series?
The Red Sox, despite building another lead (five and a half games by Aug. 10), did not win the division title last season. They finished with the same record as the Yankees, but they were placed second because they Yankees won the season series between the teams.
The Red Sox won the wild card because the Cleveland Indians, with whom they were tied going into the final weekend series, lost their final three games to the White Sox.
But now here Boston goes again, failing to establish a commanding division lead and very possibly needing to win the division title to gain entry to October for the fourth consecutive year.
I repeat the cautionary advice I offered the Red Sox last year: If they want to be assured of a postseason spot, they would be wise to finish ahead of the Yankees in the A.L. East. This year, more than last, the wild card could elude the second-place team.
•This year, a three-team race has developed for the wild card, and two of the teams play in the Central. The Detroit Tigers show no letup in their relentless foray through the division, but the White Sox and the Minnesota Twins are formidable competitors for the fourth spot in the A.L. half of the playoffs. The Red Sox cannot dismiss either, no matter what their rabid supporters might think.
The White Sox and the Twins have nine games left with each other and three each with the Red Sox and the Yankees. The nine games remaining between the Red Sox and the Yankees include five games in four days in a long weekend in Boston next week. The intensity of that series could leave one or both teams in desperate straits.
The Red Sox, though, have to hope that the sight of the Yankees will act as smelling salts and snap them out of their annual stupor.
yeah, it's a long article, so I don't blame you for not reading it...the gist of it is, the sox should be ashamed of not taking a bigger lead over the yankees in one of their "worst" seasons ever. He speaks some truths in the article, but what I really wanted to talk about was the wild card. The dude talks about how red sox fans take the wild card for granted because we've won it the past few years, and how we can't count on it as a backup anymore, with the white sox, twins, etc. all fighting for it.
So...do we take the wild card for granted? I don't think we do.
THE Boston Red Sox are a poor excuse for a good baseball team. For the second year in a row, they have squandered an advantage they had over the Yankees, this year even more grievously than last. Like last year, they will very likely pay for their profligacy.
For the first four days in July, the Red Sox led the Yankees by four games in the American League East. Today, the Yankees lead the Red Sox by two games.
•A 12-game winning streak gave the Red Sox their four-game lead. Since that streak ended, the Red Sox have won half of their games — 17 of 34 — while the Yankees have won 22 of 32.
Plenty of time left in the season, plenty of games remaining on the schedule, including nine with each other? Certainly. But by now, the Red Sox should have had a commanding lead over the Yankees. But they don’t have that lead, even though the Yankees have played much of the season without a third of their starting lineup.
Hideki Matsui hasn’t played since May 11, Gary Sheffield last played May 29 and Robinson Canó has been out of the lineup since June 25. They have missed a combined 170 games, or 17.5 percent of the games the nine-man starting lineup has played.
Some may say Alex Rodriguez has been missing, too. On top of the absences of Matsui, Sheffield and Canó, Rodriguez is having a lackluster season, making three errors in one game and striking out three and four times in others. The youngest player to hit 450 home runs, Rodriguez has hit only one home run in his past 14 games and three in his last 29.
Randy Johnson, the Yankees’ putative No. 1 starting pitcher, has been erratic at best, allowing five runs or more in more than a third of his starts and struggling through the season with a 5.11 earned run average, placing him 83rd among 112 pitchers with 15 starts or more.
Bruised and bloodied, the Yankees have been winning with players named Melky and Bubba. With only a third of the season to go, they have won more than the Red Sox, who until catcher Jason Varitek had knee surgery last week, had not dealt with the extended absence of an everyday player.
This season’s developments should come as no surprise to the Fenway faithful. They saw it most recently only last season, when the Red Sox were six and a half games ahead of the Yankees barely a month into the season. Less than three weeks later, they had tumbled behind the Yankees.
Considering that the Yankees played dreadfully in their first 30 games (11-19), it was noted here at that time that “the Red Sox should have taken off and left the Yankees in the dust.”
“Take that six-and-a-half-game advantage over their nemesis and build it to such a level that the Yankees would be recalling the days of Horace Clarke and Jerry Kenney.”
Furthermore, I wrote, the Red Sox might have to win the division championship to get to the playoffs because their coveted wild-card spot might not be available to them. They were in danger of losing out to the second-place team from the A.L. Central.
The Fenway faithful responded in outrage, acting as if the wild card was their birthright, and anyway, what did it matter if the Red Sox finished first or won the wild card? The playoffs were the playoffs. A team only had to get there to have a chance to win. They were the wild card in 2004, weren’t they, when they won the World Series?
The Red Sox, despite building another lead (five and a half games by Aug. 10), did not win the division title last season. They finished with the same record as the Yankees, but they were placed second because they Yankees won the season series between the teams.
The Red Sox won the wild card because the Cleveland Indians, with whom they were tied going into the final weekend series, lost their final three games to the White Sox.
But now here Boston goes again, failing to establish a commanding division lead and very possibly needing to win the division title to gain entry to October for the fourth consecutive year.
I repeat the cautionary advice I offered the Red Sox last year: If they want to be assured of a postseason spot, they would be wise to finish ahead of the Yankees in the A.L. East. This year, more than last, the wild card could elude the second-place team.
•This year, a three-team race has developed for the wild card, and two of the teams play in the Central. The Detroit Tigers show no letup in their relentless foray through the division, but the White Sox and the Minnesota Twins are formidable competitors for the fourth spot in the A.L. half of the playoffs. The Red Sox cannot dismiss either, no matter what their rabid supporters might think.
The White Sox and the Twins have nine games left with each other and three each with the Red Sox and the Yankees. The nine games remaining between the Red Sox and the Yankees include five games in four days in a long weekend in Boston next week. The intensity of that series could leave one or both teams in desperate straits.
The Red Sox, though, have to hope that the sight of the Yankees will act as smelling salts and snap them out of their annual stupor.
yeah, it's a long article, so I don't blame you for not reading it...the gist of it is, the sox should be ashamed of not taking a bigger lead over the yankees in one of their "worst" seasons ever. He speaks some truths in the article, but what I really wanted to talk about was the wild card. The dude talks about how red sox fans take the wild card for granted because we've won it the past few years, and how we can't count on it as a backup anymore, with the white sox, twins, etc. all fighting for it.
So...do we take the wild card for granted? I don't think we do.