Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick

dcat: I figure I'll start us off this week. Obviously it was a pretty lousy weekend as we lost two of three to the Yanks and we did so in the sort of way that might send them launching off on one of their patented 19 of 21 tears. That Abreu catch in the 8th reminded me a bit of Lou Piniella's "look what I found" play on Remy in 1978 when lou just reached his hand out and caught a ball on the bounce that by a;ll rights ought to have gone for extra bases since Piniella lost it in the sun. Then the A-Rod home run last night was a crusher, and when we got up in the bottom of the ninth and Papi could not get that ball to carry into the bullpen, well, it was just that sort of loss. You shake off that sort of loss to Kansas City or Minnesota. But that is the one team to whom you don't want to hand games.

Still, how can we not feel pretty good, all in all? Let's face it -- this was as bad a week as we've had this season, despite winning the series against Cleveland, largely because of last night's game. This team, like the 2004 group, seems to have a lot of character. I fully expect them to come out tonight, even with only four hours of sleep, and be ready to pound some chardonnay-sipping west coast teams.

Thunderstick: Well before we start backing up to the ledge, talking about 1978, I think we need to take a deep breath and get a grip on ourselves. This is really the first disappointing Monday since probably after the first week of the season that we are writing this journal entry. It was a tough series loss this weekend to the Yanks and while we all are starting to wonder if we have sparked the Yanks and they'll start playing well from here on out and overtake us like they've done the last 10+ summers. But it's important to remember that we've still got 10 game lead in the division and 12.5 over the Yanks.

As for the Sox, I think they have to be almost happy to head out west. This past weekend, as well as some of these other Yankee series this year, we saw pitchers on both sides, some of whom are having very good years, put up some mediocre to poor numbers. I think there has to be some degree familiarity leading to this. I think Schill and Wakefield have each started three times against the Yanks in the first 54 games of the year. They are both familiar with each other's bullpens at this point. The hitters on both sides are too good to not adjust when they see these guys so often. So now we don't see the Yanks until August and September and the Sox can roll out west and see some teams they don't see often (most notably some NL teams that the Sox have bashed on the last few years).

We're at the 1/3 point of the season now and these are things we know--the rotation is solid, the bullpen is solid and the lineup is solid. I mean really what else is there to say? Most of the questions we've had have been answered with a resounding yes. Will Schill get some of his older form back? Will Beckett show marked improvement in his second year in the AL? Will DiceK be able to adjust to the majors? Will Pap be as good as last year? Will Tek look younger than he did last year? Can Lowell play more like he did the first two months last year? Can we get some offense from someone like Dusty Pedroia? Can Tavarez be a serviceable #5? Do we have enough arms to get from the starters to Pap? All affirmatives to these questions.

The concerns--Lugo in the leadoff spot as he just isn’t' getting on enough. Drew in the 5 as he's been lousy so far. Waker as the #4--great start, lousy lately. You usually get 6 great weeks of Waker, 6 lousy weeks and 3 months of decent pitching. We saw 4 great weeks. We are now around 4 lousy weeks. I'll take 4 months of decent pitching, but I'm concerned he's going to give us 2-3 lousy months still, not 2-3 more lousy weeks. So there are concerns, but as Theo is always fond of saying, you have 1/3 of the season to figure out what you have, 1/3 of the season to fix it and 1/3 of the season to play. I think we know what we have. Let's see what the Sox do to fix it.

And to lift our spirits after the Yanks season, it's important to point out that the lead over NY is still 12.5. We only have 6 games left with them. Most likely someone will win 4 of 6 or we'll split that. Let's say NY takes 4 of 6--that means that in the other 100 games left, the Yanks need to make up 10.5 games. No small task considering the Sox have yet to even start their 18 games with TB. In fact the Sox have 61 games left with teams under .500 other than the Yanks. We always say that if the Sox can win 2 of 3 from the lousy teams and go .500 against everyone else, they'll make the playoffs. I think a conservative record projection for the 100 games left not against NY would be about 57-43, so given that, the Yanks would have to go 67-33 over the last 4 months to catch us. So I think we can see how monumental their task is to dig out of their hole. Could they do it? Sure. But I don't think what we saw this weekend is enough to instill angst amongst the nation yet.