Red Sox Continue Battling Injuries And Division Rivals For Playoff Spots

The Red Sox lost last night 6-5 at the Trop to Tampa Bay and as a result, its place atop the AL Wild Card standings and now sit in second in that playoff chase. Worse, the BoSox now sit in third place in the AL East for the first time since June 26, when they were percentage points behind the Rays for second place, and have fallen to two-and-a-half games back of AL East-leading New York.

The fact that it took this long for the Sox to show signs of wear and tear is simply amazing. With Clay Buchholz, Manny Delcarmen and Jason Varitek joining Mike Lowell, Dustin Pedroia, Jeremy Hermida, Jacoby Ellsbury, Victor Martinez and Josh Beckett on the disabled list last week, that gives Boston nine players out of action until at least the All-Star break. That’s an amount that could field almost an entire other team’s starting lineup.

You’d be hard–pressed to find another major league team missing that much talent and still find itself at or near the top of two playoff races for as long as Boston has been. Last night, the injuries finally began to take its toll on Boston – more on that game next week – as it began its final two series before the All-Star break against divisional foes Tampa Bay and Toronto.

Now, here’s more of my take and highlights of last week’s happenings in Red Sox Nation.

For the full post of this week's Dead Red column, first posted at Blogcritics Magazine, click this URL.

Papi And Lester Among Hot Sox Entering June

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.