Thunderstick: Well we stand on yet another Monday morning after a great week of baseball for the Sox, taking 3 of 4 from Detroit, one of the top AL contenders, and then winning 2 of 3 from Atlanta despite starting two minor league call ups and having to face Smoltz and Glavine. The lead has been extended to 10.5 games and with the exception of Beckett's finger, all seems to be well in the Nation.
Two points this week that I think speak to why this team is in the position they are in. First, the bench and role players have just been huge. Getting contributions from Manny, Ortiz, Pap and Schill was a given to have this team be good. But to be a great team, you need guys like Lugo, Cora, Coco, Okajima, Wily Mo, Hinske and the rest of those guys to come up big when they need it. Even in a blowout loss the other night, we at least saw some of the bottom of the bullpen guys take it for the team, get through the game and not force us to use up the more important relievers. Special teams always get contributions from these kind of guys at crucial points and we're getting them.
Second, we always talk about how imporant it is to win series during the year. Well at this point, the Sox have played 15 series on the year and they've won 12, tied one and lost two. That's just remarkable. This team has really taken the one game at a time approach to heart and you haven't seen a lot of those letdown games that you get after big wins or big series. I think that's why we are winning almost every series we play.
So the question remains as to how this fast start plays out. Is it like 1995 where this team is off to the races now and will never really be threatened all year? Or is it like 2001 or 2002 (I can't remember which) when they started out like 40-17 and then played .500 ball the rest of the way and missed the playoffs? I tend to think it's the former. With the pitching on this team, I just can't see many long stretches of merely .500 ball being played by this team. Additionally, it doesn't look like we've got a powerful Yanks team to contend with. But if the Yanks are going to make a move, you gotta figure it needs to happen in these next three weeks. This series, they get their top 3--Mussina, Pettite and Wang against the Sox 1 or 2 (depending on how you look at it--I think Beckett is the 1), in Schilling and the 4 and 5 in Tavarez and Waker. If you are the Yanks, you really don't get it set up much better than that and you get it in the toilet bowl that is Yankee Stadium. In a couple weeks in Boston, they'll likely have Clemens for the game. If you are the Yanks (and thank god you are not), you have to take 4 of these 6 games. 3-3 means you are still 10.5 games back and losing 4 of 6 might signal the end of at least any hopes of the AL East. This is going to be a tough Sox team to make up 10.5 games on, much less 12.5. So here's hoping Waker gets things rolling tonight and we can start putting the final nail in the Yanks coffin in the next three days.
dcat: It does not matter what the standings say, what the records are, what day of the week it is, or what time of the year -- Sox-Yanks is always huge. I know in our solipsism we tend to annoy the rest of the world with this rivalry, and there are other great rivalries in the sport. At the same time, though, none of those rivalries has had both participants be so good for so long with each game thus meaning so much as these two teams. Here we are in mid-May, and as you say, the Yanks pretty much need to be in, if not desperation mode, at least in a late-season mindset. If they do not improve what they have right now, Clemens simply will not make that much of a difference -- something we have asserted might be the case anyway.
Despite our lead, despite the early-season mismatch in the rivalry, I find myself hating giving up that bomb to A-Rod and at the same time falling behind early. I hate missing opportunities to score because as much as we seem to have put these guys in the rearview mirror, we both know that this Yankees team has had the lead against us in almost every game. At the same time, all the pressure is on them. The Yanks have, as you say, just about the best pitching combination they could possibly hope for in the next three games. It may not be enough. Jeter just committed an error and the Sox have loaded the bases. Have I said how much I love this rivalry? (Youks strikes out, with a little help from an ump's generous call on strike two. Have I said how much I hate the Yankees?)
No comments:
Post a Comment