One Week Later

O.K. it's been a week since I checked in. Let's see how the week has been for the Red Sox (hint, not so great!

The Sox were off on the 11th of May and coming off of a much needed series win against the Tampa Bay Rays. Beckett pitched well, and the team had the aforementioned off-day to look forward to before starting a west coast road trip. There were some concerns, including an injury to Youk that put him on the DL and an injury to Pedroia. Dice-K was still not ready to pitch and Big Papi was still struggling... and it would only get worse.

The team lost 2 out of 3 to the Angels, and david oritz hit (bad pun alert) a new low - in a game vs. the Angles, he went 0-7 and left 12 runners stranded! 12!! The team has since sat Papi down,with the hope that returning home and clearing his head will allow him to possible scrape out of this.- the jury is still way out on this one, and the team needs to consider the possibility that he will not return, and that they may have to move to plan B - ie. bring in another power bat, and if they can't find someone to replace him, they can at least strengthen the line-up. If Papi doesn't him, he is effectively worthless. I love the guy, but at DH he isn't like Varitek, who can justify a low BA. as long as he continue to play a good role behind the plate.

The team then went on to lost 2/3 to the Mariners. They are off today, and tomorrow start 6 straight games against division leaders, the Toronto Blue Jays and the NY Mets, respectively.

I like to check in periodicaly with the teams record, and project outwards over the 162 season. I checked in at the 16 game pt (1/10 of the way through), the 32 game pt, and then at 40, the quarter pt. At 16 games they were 10-6, projecting towards 100 wins. I certainly don't expect that to hold up. At 32 games they were 20-12. I like the consistency there, and the projection remains, although I still don't expect it. They are now 22-16 now, so depending on the next 2 games allowing them to hit 40 played, they could be projecting out from 88 to 96 wins. 88 won't make the playoffs, but I think 96 would win the division . 92 would be very, very tight. So we shall see.

Meanwhile the Yanks are starting to play very well, and with 3 straight walk off wins at home they are red hot! I suspect the next series between the 2 will start to take on more significance, and would love to see the sox dominance continue, but once again don't expect that to happen.

Beast