They are now one game below five hundred and 3.5 games behind the division leading Yankees. The offense has been turning it around and even Daisuke Matsuzaka and John Lackey have put in solid performances. Other than Clay Buchholz struggling with his control there has been little to complain about this past week. Unless of course you think like Dan Shaugnessy in his Sunday column, but hopefully you value your life more than I do mine and didn’t waste the 10 minutes I did reading it.
Now that the Red Sox are nearing respectability the season should start to hold a positive light and the team who entered 2011 with thoughts of 100 wins can at least start to think about 95 again. Using the PECOTA method from BaseballProspectus.com they are on track for 94.2 wins and second place to the Yankees at 94.4. That’s a dead heat and hopefully an exciting season.
Both teams also currently hold a greater than 87 percent chance of making the playoffs since projections just don’t have the Rays sticking around all season. Seems like we are back where we started unless you were somebody who really thought they would run away with the whole thing.
If we really want to get negative though the things we should be picking at are not the Adrian Gonzalezs of the world or even the Carl Crawfords. My one concern on the team right now is still Clay Buchholz who has not controlled his pitches well, as Charlie discussed last week.
I could also pile on the catching position, but I didn’t expect much coming into 2011 from that spot, so why start demanding something now? I’ve been reading some on recently aquired Michael McKenry from the Colorado Rockies and there is a possibility he could see some time if the Red Sox decide to try something else.
He has good on base skills and has been known for a good glove behind the plate. He even added some power recently and would probably be ready to make the majors on many other teams. His early line in Pawtucket isn’t good though in his first 25 plate appearances, so don’t see the Red Sox rushing to move him along.
Just like that I try to find a few negatives in this season and I turn it into something positive. The Red Sox certainly still have issues, but they are small and should be managable. The poor luck they had to start this season was something we probably won’t see again at that level hopefully for a long time. It looked like it almost got to the point to start derailing their playoff hopes, but we saw again what a difference a week can make.