Where’s My Head?

Right now, I have no idea where I am. It was a bit of a confounding weekend, Sox-wise. How did I come out of it? I’m not sure.

Let’s get the 1000-pound gorilla out of the way. Josh Beckett better be just fine. It would be possible for the Sox to do it without him. After all, if you take out Beckett, the Sox rotation is pretty much the Yankees rotation. Even so, it’s certainly not the preferred option. So, I’m going to have to move forward assuming Beckett will take the mound in game 1 on the 30^th fully prepared to dominate.

From there, did the weekend tell us anything? Sure. Andrew Miller shouldn’t pitch in the playoffs. But, we knew that. Honestly, that’s the silver lining to the whole mess. Andrew Miller and Michael Bowden got knocked around this weekend. They’re not pitching in the playoffs anyway. The people who will be pitching in the playoffs? Beckett, Aceves, Bard, and Papelbon pitched superbly. Bedard pitched just fine from where I sit. Even Lackey, you could convince yourself, didn’t pitch terribly. He was going right along until one big inning. And, many of the runs charged to him scored while he was in the dugout. Not that it excuses it. But, if the inherited runners don’t score, doesn’t your feeling of Lackey’s outing take a dramatic turn?

The offense? If you look quickly, you could be worried. That’s why you shouldn’t look quickly. They got shutout yesterday. That’s true. But, the starting pitcher they faced was a youngster, so they probably didn’t have much scouting to go on. It seems though the years the Sox have had a lot of trouble with similar pitchers for the same reason. Plus, I’ll forgive some sluggishness on a day game following a day game with travel in-between. I just can’t bring myself to worry about a line-up that has three contenders for AL MVP in it. And that’s just the top three hitters.

So, the Sox trail by 2.5 games. Yup. They should still catch the Yankees. They might not. I still can’t decide if I’d rather face Detroit and Verlander, or Texas in a short series. So it really doesn’t matter to me. So, the Sox can just plug along on their way to the playoffs.

Please, just stay healthy.