For the past month, the Boston Red Sox have been all but eliminated from contention. They were the Detroit Tigers of the AL East: a strong team, but their chances of making the postseason dwindled faster than the number of people who believe Jose Bautista isn't taking steroids (more on that in a little bit). Well, unlike the Tigers, who rolled over and purred for the Twins and even White Sox ahead of them, the Red Sox, accustomed to statistical failure, sure as hell haven't given up. In fact, they've made a late playoff bid against the one team who really needed to beat them to keep their own hopes alive: their hated rival, the New York Yankees. A far cry from the 2009 championship team (even though they're fundamentally the same players), these Yanks have really dropped the ball lately, literally and figuratively. They're currently on a 4-game losing streak, after dropping 2 to the team ahead of them and 2 to the team below them. Not a pretty sight for Jeter and his crew. If they lose tonight (at the moment of this writing, the BoSox are up 1-0 in the bottom of the 7th), they'll not only be a game and a half behind Tampa Bay, but will only be leading Boston by 4.5 games. It's incredible how the past 6 years have changed Boston's playing over the previous 9 decades. Since breaking the alleged "Curse of the Bambino" in 2004, they've made the playoffs every year except 2006, won championship number 7 in 2007, and more importantly, were partially responsible for forcing the Yanks out of the 2008 playoffs, the first year they failed to at least reach the ALDS since 1995 (game update: Alex Rodriguez, in another bid to finally make New Yorkers like him, just belted a 2-run shot to put the Yankees up. A-Rod, you're all right in my book). This is pretty apropos of how their seasons would go between 1918 and 2004: come into October, knock some good teams out before finally losing...except that last part changed in '04. The fact of the matter is this: Boston can be 10 games out in the middle of September and still be in playoff conversations. I checked the ESPN preview for Friday's game between the two teams, and I scoffed at the following sentence: "With their playoff hopes nearly extinguished, the Boston Red Sox are looking to spark something in this away series at New York." How can you say a team who's 6.5 games out of the wild card, THE WILD CARD, on September 24th, with roughly a full week left of play, is NEARLY out of contention?! They're as far away from the playoffs as Barry Bonds is from making a comeback (look out, 2011)! Or so I thought. Even with 6 home runs in Friday's game, including 2 from A-Rod and 2 from Mark Teixeira, the Yanks STILL managed to lose, 10-8. All right. No big deal. Still sitting on 5.5 games. This is totally manageable. And then on Saturday, apparently still dumbfounded by Boston's signs of life, they lost 7-3. What is going on? Is this the same Red Sox that The Baseball Freak wrote about just a few weeks ago, when he discussed their limited options and laughed to himself, the Yankee fan in him vastly satisfied? No...it can't be...this must be a Red Sox team rejuvenated. They're channeling the spirit of Ted Williams and forcing him into David Ortiz's body! They're nursing Adrian Beltre with Native American chants! They've tied Theo Epstein up and hidden him from sight! All AL contenders, watch out for these boys!!
Two great players on two separate teams both hit impressive milestones this past week: Ichiro Suzuki of the Mariners reached his 10th consecutive 200-hit season, and Jose Bautista of the Blue Jays hit his 50th homer of the season, the first player to do so since 2007. We already know (and have known for years) what a dominant player Ichiro is, but Bautista has literally come out of nowhere this season. He's been playing since 2004 (the year he played for 4 different teams), but until this year, he had only hit 59 home runs total. And now, a week before the regular season ends, he's hit 52 just this year. This is a truly amazing feat: and, as with every incredible accomplishment, people want to figure out how he's done it. And, as is common procedure by jaded baseball fans and reporters this decade, plenty of people have started accusing him of juicing. I understand being suspicious, but give me a break. In this day and age, with the advanced testing and multiple methods of determining if a player is taking steroids, wouldn't we have heard something legitimate towards this already? Are we really so far gone as fans that we have to automatically assume that, when a player does something good, regardless of how unexpected it may be, is cheating? Can't we guess that he changed his swing? Or that he worked to improve his eye-hand coordination during the offseason? Maybe pitchers started throwing him easier pitches because they underestimated him, then couldn't stop? Maybe he's a late bloomer? Or maybe it's just part of the magic and mystique that surrounds the game: there are plenty of incredible, amazing, holy-crap-did-you-see-that?! moments in major league baseball...this could simply be a season-long one. We really need to collectively get out of the mindset that every player who excels is doing something wrong.
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