Sox Offenders

One month left to go in the 2009 Major League Baseball regular season. Yesterday we were scraping ice off the windshield, shoveling the walk, and praying for spring, and suddenly hints of autumn are all around us. The leaves are beginning to tint a bit, a crisp breeze picks up in the evenings, kids are heading back to school, and the playoff race is on. What was a marathon is now a sprint. And September will, as it should, decide everything.

Let me make my position clear; I want the division. I’ll take the wild card, of course, but I want the fucking division. Aside from the standing reason of “I hate the fucking Yankees” there is a legitimate concern here. Assuming both the Red Sox and the Yankees make it through the first round of the playoffs, the Red Sox need home field advantage to beat the Yankees. Having to play four in that ridiculous new stadium where aging wrecks like Posada and Damon are having career years…that just doesn’t have a good ending.

At 6.5 games out with 30-something left to play; it’s a tall order to expect a division title. But throw in three more head-to-head with the Yankees and a lot of ground can be made up quickly. The Yankees will be coming off a six-game west coast trip with the Mariners and Angels just before facing the Sox. If the Sox can chip a couple-or-three games off the lead by the time that late-season showdown arrives, you won’t want to miss a minute of the series.

That’s why these three games with the Rays are absolutely crucial. The Yankees are playing Baltimore, the next best thing to winning by a forfeit. If the Sox lose ground, the division race is over. As it stands today, the Sox have a chokehold on the wild card. Texas is doing what everyone knew they would as their pitching crumbles, and the Rays have slipped back enough to let Tito cut back on his Bigelow intake a bit. But if the Sox go tits-up like the last time they went to Tampa, suddenly the wild card race is back on.

Game one features Lester versus Sonnanstine; should be a lock. The finale has Buccholz facing Price and we can feel pretty good about that one. The middle game is the key; Beckett against Garza. The Sox have had a tough time against Garza; he is 2.0 with a 1.88 ERA and has 27 K’s in 28 innings. Meanwhile, Beckett is just 1-1 with an ERA over five. He was shelled back in April when he last faced Garza. Neither pitcher has looked great in August. One of them will have to step up in September; my money’s on Beckett.

The next time we meet, a lot of this might be decided. But the way things are going, I doubt it. Can the Sox really count on Paul Byrd to lead them to the Promised Land? Or will Dice-K be the x-factor in the 2009 season? It’s why we watch the games.

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