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AL East / Wild Card Shakedown
September 1, 2008
If Sawx Heads were ESPN and this blog were an episode of PTI, we would be saying "Happy Anniversary" to Clay Buchholz who one year ago today threw a no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles. We would also be saying "Happy Trails" to the New York Yankees chances of making the playoffs. The Yankees are losers of their last two consecutive games and 5-5 in their last ten. The Yankees currently sit 12.
5 games out of first place and seven games back of the second place Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox took the season series from the Chicago White Sox 4-3 but failed to complete the sweep on Sunday in a game that they needed to win in order to stay 4.5 games behind the team that seems to never lose, the Tampa Bay Rays. The Red Sox hold a 2.5 game lead over the Minnesota Twins in the Wild Card race and have no games remaining against either Chicago or Minnesota (Boston's biggest threats for Wild Card contention).
The Red Sox will begin their month of September welcoming the Baltimore Orioles to Fenway Park for a three game set. Including tonight's game, the Red Sox have 25 games remaining on the season and 16 of them are scheduled to be played at home where the Red Sox are an incredible 45-19. Boston still has a great opportunity to gain some ground in the division with six games remaining to be played against the Rays. The first of two series between the two teams will be played a week from today at Fenway Park.
As previously mentioned, the Yankees are 7 games back of the Red Sox in the AL East which in turn makes them 7 games back of the first place Red Sox in the Wild Card standings. If some crazy change of events takes course in the final month of the Major League season and the Yankees can gain even a little ground, the two teams are set to square off in their final three game series of the season starting on September 26th and ending on the 28th. The Yankees have 26 games remaining including today's game and many of them are against teams in contention for the playoffs.
The Yankees open up their month of September on the road. In fact, 16 of New York's remaining 26 games will be played on the road where the Yankees are one game under .500 at 32-33 on the season. The Bronx Bombers have six games remaining with the Tampa Bay Rays (3 at home, 3 on the road), a three game series with the LA Angels on the road, a four game series with the Chicago White Sox at home and of course, the three game series with Boston to close out their season at Fenway.
Here's why this series has a good chance of having no significance to the Yankees: the Yankees are seven games out and need to get hot when the Red Sox are playing at their worst. Unfortunately for Hank's Yanks, this won't happen. The Yankees have faced adversity this season losing Chien-Ming Wang and Joba Chamberlain for an extended period of time. Along with losing Alex Rodriguez in the beginning of the season and Derek Jeter as well. Instead of staring adversity in the face and playing harder, Hank Steinbrenner simply told the baseball world that the Yankees were "playing for next year".
Well, the same situation if not worse has happened to Boston and we just so happen to be in a pennant race. If we were going to play a tough stretch of baseball, it would have happened when we lost Mike Lowell, when Manny Ramirez was dogging it, when Jason Varitek couldn't hit a beach ball with a tennis racket, when Josh Beckett's elbow kept him out of the rotation, when Tim Wakefield went on the disabled list, when JD Drew's back kept him out of action, anything at all. The Red Sox had plenty of excuses, but used none, and that ladies and gentlemen is the difference between the two clubs that currently sit second and third place in the AL East.
The first place Tampa Bay Rays have also faced adversity since the first day of the season. Their lack of inexperience could have been their biggest fault and number one excuse but we never heard it. Not having Rocco Baldelli for most of the season, Carlos Pena taking a long time for his swing to come around, the loss of Evan Longoria and Carl Crawford, this team had plenty of excuses too but you still don't hear a word.
You won't see any other two teams emerge from the AL East bound for October other than the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008. What happens from that point on is anybody's guess, but the fact is that the team that fights the hardest through any given situation will be where they want to be when baseball's lights shine the brightest, October.
-Jared Carrabis
-Jared Carrabis
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