DENIAL IS NOT JUST A RIVER IN AFRICA

I will say it: the Red Sox, if they do not still win the AL East, will win the Wild Card and go just as far in the playoffs than those pinstriped jerks celebrating all over Fenway this weekend.

Sour grapes? Sure, why not. But I still believe that this five games in four days trip came at the worst possible time for Boston and the best possible time for New York. Hey, sometimes we get the breaks, sometimes the breaks break us.

The Sox are not as bad as they looked this weekend, I swear. In fact, there is no doubt that after getting blown out in the first two games, they were in position to win the last three. How did they blow it? Let me count the ways:

1. Inconsistent starting pitching
2. Terrible work by the bullpen
3. Bad
situational hitting
and
4. Terrible clutch hitting

Also, let me take my cap off to the Yankees bullpen and the top six batters in the lineup who literally beat the crap out of the Sox. Hey, I admit it. The Sox were outplayed. The Yankees were better this weekend.

Of course, the real reason the Red Sox lost is due to my nephew Andrew in South Dennis. After my four-year old son spent a few days Cape Codding, he reported back that my nephew, long a Yankees fan due to the influence of his Connecticut Yankee raised dad (my sister to this day probably does not care about baseball one way or the other, but probably sees it as cosmic justice considering how I often I annoyed her and the other sisters as they tried to play wiffleball with the only rulesbook quoting five year old in the neighborhood). Anyway, Hal IV came back the week before the series reporting that

Cousin Drew likes the Red Sox now, Dad!!!

I, of course, saw through this ruse immediately. Drew had invoked the hideous reverse-curse on the Red Sox. I knew it was over right there. Wild Card, here we come again!

So thanks, Drew. You and your Dad can yuk it up until October, until Detroit, Chicago or Oakland knock your Yankees down a peg in the ALDS.

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