So Much for that Idea

Okay, I admit it, I’m one of those idiots who, back in June, boldly predicted that the Sox would win the AL East pretty handily and the race would be over by mid-September. I can’t deny it; it’s in print right here:

http://bostonnine.blogspot.com/2005/06/bold-predictions.html

As it turns out a lot of things that I suggested at the beginning of the season about the Yankees pitching staff not living up to it’s expectations ended up being true. After seeing all of this happen, I figured that there was no way any team could make up for that kind of damage to their staff. But this is not ANY team; this is the New York Yankees.

What the hell was I thinking? I should know better than that. I’ve seen it happen too many times before.

Now here we are with 12 games left to the season. Aren’t we supposed to be about 7 games up right now? I can take some comfort in knowing that there are quite a few writers out there who actually get paid to write this stuff, and they were just as fooled by it as I was. Of course, that doesn’t help keep me from squirming in my seat during every pitch and jumping up to my computer between every inning to check the scores of the other AL games.

Unfortunately it’s not just the Yankees we have to worry about. After last nights defeat of the White Sox, the Indians have taken a one game lead over us, which doesn’t matter today, but if we go ahead and blow the division lead we don’t even win the Wild Card at this rate. And that’s assuming the Indians don’t take over the Central and force us into a Wild Card battle with the White Sox.

At one time, I was worrying about catching the White Sox for best record in the AL, thus clinching home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Now I just want to make sure we make the playoffs.

I thought last night would be the start of something big for us. We’ve got David Wells going, who’s been pretty solid for us lately, has a reputation of coming up big in crucial games, and absolutely owns the D-Rays in his career with a 13-1 record. On the other side is a pitcher that we have absolutely crushed in his career against us, including 2 starts this year in which he only lasted a total of 3 innings and gave up 11 runs, including the first game this year when he never recorded an out. Just what we need to get the offense going again and get this team on a winning roll, right? Not quite.

Although that’s one way to look at, there’s also another way. It’s one of those situations where the odds so heavily favor one side that there’s no way that side is going to win. I think in Vegas they call it something like a “reverse lock”.

Anyway, we did get 6 runs off of him, although the offense really didn’t get going the way I hoped it would, and even worse, Wells was not good (hopefully it was the sore knee causing the problems and it will get resolved with the cortisone shot).

So much for Francona’s idea of not throwing the rookie into the fire for his first big league appearance. Craig Hansen was very impressive in his major league debut. I’m not sure how much this guy can help down the stretch and into the playoffs, but if he keeps pitching like that he can help a lot. Two strikeouts and a broken bat pop up, 13 of 19 pitches for strikes (we haven’t seen enough of that lately) and that live fastball with late movement in the mid to upper 90’s. He certainly can’t do any worse than a couple of the other pitchers in the pen whose place he could take on the playoff roster, and he has the advantage of not having been seen yet by any of these hitters. That is, assuming we make the playoffs.

It doesn’t help losing yet another key player to injury last night. Hopefully, Graffanino’s groin injury is not serious and he comes back shortly. Cora is capable of filling in for him, but by having to play him like that it weakens an already severely depleted bench that has lost both Kapler and now Youkilis for the season.

The injuries are going to be as big of a problem as the bullpen for us. Damon is still banged up and with Kapler out he’s going to have to play everyday. Although he had a good game at the plate last night, he dropped a ball that cost us a run. I suspect that had more to do with the problems he has in domes though, more than a result of his injuries.

Mueller has been hitting better of late, but now he’s another guy who is going to be forced to play everyday with the injury to Youkilis. The Captain is still not hitting (although he did walk twice last night) and although I agree with Francona that he’s more important to this team as a catcher, we could still really use his bat.

Hopefully we can take advantage of the favorable pitching match-up tonight, find a way to get by Kazmir on Wednesday, and then the much needed day off on Thursday will give all of these guys enough of a chance to rest, recoup, regroup, and get something going from there.

As for me, I’ll be agonizing through every game while watching the computer scoreboard. But that’s okay, because like I said in my last post, this is exciting stuff and I like it this way, don’t I?