With series wins at home versus the Oakland Athletics and on the road in Baltimore, the red hot Red Sox have now gone seven series in a row without losing one, dating back to losing two of three in Detroit in mid-May. They have won 11 of their past 15 games and are now tied with Toronto for third in the AL East with identical 33-25 records, which at a .569 winning percentage is also good for fourth in the AL.
More importantly, the Sox (and the offensive juggernaut that is the Blue Jays) are still well within striking distance of both divisional and Wild Card playoff spots, being respectively 4 1/2 GB of Tampa Bay and 2 1/2 GB of New York to start the week. One astounding development is that as of games through June 6, all four of these AL East teams lead the majors in runs scored, with the Sox and Yankees tied at the top with 314, followed by the Rays and Jays at 296 and 295, respectively.
And this division is also dominating the AL Wild Card race. The Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays own the top three spots coming into this new week. Of these, the biggest surprise is the Jays, who lost their general manager (J.P. Ricciardi), ace pitcher (Roy Halladay), and others in the past year. To the detriment of the rest of the league, it’s going to be a fun summer if this keeps up.
This is an excerpt from my latest "Dead Red" weekly Sox column, which was published earlier tonight in full at the site of Blogcritics Magazine via this cool link.
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