Ready for the Weekend

Players petting puppies. Because sometimes we just need to not be so serious. (Nate Spears and Jason Place photo from Portland last year courtesy of Kelly O'Connor and used with permission)

The Seattle Mariners, the Chicago White Sox and the Minnesota Twins are the only teams in the American League with less wins and more losses than the Boston Red Sox.  These are not the halcyon days we dreamed of back in December when this team felt like it was going to be unstoppable.

Luckily for us, our team plays in the American League East.  Arguably the most competitive league in Major League Baseball, yes?  So even though the Red Sox are tied for last in the division and five games out of first, the lead the Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles have over them is not close to being insurmountable.  As we all are painfully aware, the team needs to get their act together and start playing consistently the way we know they can.  And I believe they will…I just hope it starts sooner rather than later.  More specifically, I hope it starts this damn weekend.

Because I can not lie…I’ve been all right with the way things have gone thus far.  Sure they aren’t where I want them to be but we’ve had some fun games and some exciting games to go along with the pain and I’m just enjoying watching baseball.  But if I have to watch this team struggle against the Yankees in the Bronx I might just end up tossing my television out the window.

This revelation doesn’t make me proud.  I know it’s stupid to put this series above any of the others we’ve watched this year.  I know this.  But, honestly, I couldn’t care less.  Listen, 2004 really did get all of the Yankees ghosts out of my life.  I don’t look at the Yankees with any kind of fear and I don’t ever think they’re unbeatable or that Mariano Rivera is indestructible…all that is gone.  BUT what isn’t gone is my extreme dislike for them and many in their fan base.  (Truth be told, I actually know some fine people who also happen to be Yankees fans so I don’t subscribe to the “all Yankees fans are <insert your own expletives here>” theory, but there are certainly large chunks of the fan base that make me want to see them cry.)  So I make no predictions for this weekend but I enter it full of hope.  Hope that the Sox can take the series (see Baseball Gods?  I’m not even asking for a sweep!), not be humiliated on national television and hope that this team can, once again, make 55,000 Yankees fans shut up.

Maybe of interest only to me:  The Kansas City Royals, who just took the series from the Yankees in New York, are currently 3.5 games out of first place in the AL Central, holding on to second place with a record of 20-17.  The Red Sox are 17-20 this morning.  The Yankees are 20-15 and in second place.

We live in strange days, my friends.