Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick

Thunderstick: What a great week. We roll 2-1 against TB and 4-0 over Chicago while the Yanks are going 1-2 against Anaheim and 1-2 against Detroit with one left today and that 4 game lead that had us back on the ledge a week ago has grown into a 7.5 game lead. This series with the Yanks that starts tomorrow has been looming for a while now, but this past weekend might have made it immaterial. The Sox will enter with at least a 7-game lead. The only thing that could really derail our train to the AL East title in these three games would be a sweep and even with that, it just gets us back to the ledge that we were on a week ago.

Like the Yanks did after the all-star break, we fattened up against some bad teams this past week, but you don't make apologies for who you beat, you just got out and beat them and improve that record. We got solid pitching all around and the bats were lively this past weekend and now we can get a day of rest (key given the doubleheader that had to be played on Friday after the rainout) and can roll into NY with Dice, Schill and Beckett lined up to go (although the way Waker is pitching right now, I'm not so sure I wouldn't rather see him in the rotation this week than Schil). It'd be nice if the Sox could go in and lay a beat down on and finish them off like the Yankees did when they came into Fenway late last year and laid down a 5 game hammer on the Sox. Bring on this series.

dcat: Bring on this series indeed. You hear that sound? That is the bluebird of happiness singing softly into our ears. Are you basking in that warmth on your skin, that sweet, fresh smell in the air, that indescribably blue sky? Those, my friend, are the heightened senses of victory.

Let us forget for a moment the historic whomping we just put on a team that will probably remove the last bit of shine from the Ozzie Guillen diamond on the South Side of Chicago. It's pretty clear that we got on a bit of a run, that ChiSox team is demoralized, and their middle relief is execrable. But while we were ringing up double digits in every game and keeping them to minimal runs, several of those scored in games that had long been decided, the Yankees were falling back to earth. They have finally reverted to their mean. Not as bad as they were in May, not as good as they were in July, the Yankees are revealing themselves for the sort of team that they are -- a mishmash of old and young, a fantasy team brought to life, with little coherent construction, a dangerous but weakened old animal capable of devastation if you corner them, but at the end of the day toothless when matched up against those who are emerging as the alpha dogs in the pack. They can forget the American League East. Once we take just one game in this series, that becomes a pipe dream for the Yankees. Right now Steinbrenner's lads are looking at a deficit that is becoming increasingly daunting in the Wild Card race. I for one cannot think of a better recruiting tool to get A-Rod than to have him watch us in the postseason while the inevitable Steinbrenner storm rages through the fall and into the winter and while the dullards who populate the Yankee City State point their errant, accusing fingers at their best player.

Naturally this series is important. But we have the pitching lined up nearly perfectly. (Though when your pitching staff goes six deep, you always have your pitching staff lined up -- Tim Wakefield is tied, with Beckett, for the ML lead in wins, and he has had a decision in every start, something that has not happened in a full season for something like 80 years. Let's also give a hat tip to what Tavarez has done for the Sox this year.) The bats are bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan. The Yankees will come in with the stink of desperation (which is only barely discernibly different from the stink that normally follows them like that which enveloped Pig Pen of the Peanuts) and our job will be to crap all over them. They need a sweep to have even a slight hope. That ain't happening.

Go Sox!!!