That Sinking Feeling

So here we are three series into inter-league play this year and Boston is 5-4 against National League opponents. This is a big break from trend of the Sox dominating the NL for the past three seasons. I’m not saying they won’t pull out of their funk, they just have to do it mostly on the road against Atlanta and San Diego next week. All I can say right now is Boston either needs to shape up or they’ll be feeling the pressure of the Yankees even more than they are now. The Yanks crept up into the rear view mirror coming back from as many as 13 down to 7 and a half now. In two weeks. The Yankees can’t win all of them, but it won’t take much for them to catch Boston if the losing trend for the Sox continues. Boston is 5-8 in the month of June. They only lost 8 games each in the month of April and May. I hope they didn’t just prematurely blow their wad.

The biggest problem right now, even more so than the staring pitching going in the tank, is the inability for the Sox to bat in any runs. It’s pretty frustrating to see 10 hits in the box score with only one damn run. The Red Sox bats have only batted in 19 runs against 26 by opponents in the last week. Only two regular day players, Ortiz and Manny, are hitting above .300. Between Papi and Manny for ribbies? Two by Manny, none for Pa

The Sox have to prove that their phenomenal start wasn’t a Breweresque type start. The rest of the AL East are still double digits back, but those teams suck. The Yankees are for real and they have been all year. The only difference now is that their potent line up is getting in a grove and the pitching is settling down and the injuries have basically stopped. All the things that went wrong for the Yanks are now going right, and they’re showing how good they can be.

So what do the Sox have to do? Get back to winning against teams they should be beating. Losing two of three to the Rockies? What the fuck? Losing the series by a combined 20-5? That’s unacceptable. What happened to when they were beating the cream of the crop in teams like Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Atlanta, and LA? Sure, I knew they’d come back down to Earth eventually, but not this bad. Not against Colorado. This was supposed to be the part of the year where they pad their stats, not go in the opposite direction. Hopefully the can get their shit together this weekend against Barry and Barry (some SF people who remember old Terry Shulte ads will get that).

I’m not watching the game against the Giants tonight, at least not live anyway, as I’ll be enjoying buck night at Kauffman Stadium when I watch the Royals face off against the Florida Marlins. It will be my first viewing of Gil “If I Were On Any Other Team I’d Be A 3^rd Starter At Best” Mesche. Hopefully I don’t gain 10 pounds tonight from eating 17 hot dogs, then again, I’m not sure that’s ever stopped me before.