With just a miserable week of baseball in the rearview mirror, I took stock of all that has happened thus far this season:

1) The Japan trip and brutal opening road trip (which resulted in a brutal sweep in Toronto)
2) 4-5 team members getting the flu and throwing cold water on a hot streak and having to start Masterson, Pauley and Lester on 3 days rest
in a series against the Angels.
3) DL stints from Beckett, Lowell, Casey, Cora with Crisp, Drew and Lugo being dinged up at various times as well.
4) 2 blown saves by Papelbon
5) 3 other horrid road series against TB, Minnesota and Baltimore with multiple gut punch losses (the Buchholz HR to Iwamura, Payton's grand slam
yesterday among others.)
6) A horrid start by Ortiz

Take all 6 of these factors and I think you have to just take the 24-19 record and run with it; should have been a lot better but it also could have been a helluva lot worse. I'm actually pretty encouraged where we are at considering all of this...we have a modest lead on NYY and Toronto, the presumed challengers, and while TB is for real and I think will win 82-85 games, I think we win out there in the long run. We'll be 4 games up by the break; book it. With so many more teams improving, reducing the amount of gimme wins, I think 91-92 wins takes the AL East this year.

Don't forget the fact that this team has just finished playing 35 games in 36 days. That, combined with the injuries and flu bug, can't be helping. It may have been a factor in the shoddy defensive play that helped lead to at least 3 of the losses on the road this past week (Ellsbury, Lugo, and Manny in Minnesota, Drew and Pedroia in Baltimore). The Yankees may not be up to their annual June-September tear, so Tampa Bay might be the main obstacle to overcome in the AL East race, and that's doable for this team.

Tampa Bay has a lot of young talent, no doubt, but I still can't get my head around their being THE competition in the East. last year, they played OK early on but started their fold in June. Like, 6/15 they were 29 - 36, not horrible, but they got to 35 - 56 just one month later. Let's see what June brings, for all teams. Of course, when you think 'how can TB do it?', you only have to look down-state to the Marlins and their two WS titles, except they did it different, having a mix of youth and experience.

I don't think it's likely that TB is our only competition, or even the most likely competition to take the AL East from the Red Sox. This thread seems like the appropriate place to pretend that they are, though.

We've lost a few close games. All the pieces of this ballclub are working pretty well, with the possible exception of half of the bullpen. We're looking great.

I'm fully convinced that we're the class of the AL, despite the frustrating recent squanders. And just because they've blown a few close ones lately doesn't mean "they don't know how to win", since they pulled more than their share of those games out of their ass in the first month and a half.

The only team that really gave them a hard time so far(in terms of just outslugging and outclassing them, not the "blow five easily winnable games against Baltimore and Minnesota" way) was Anaheim, but even that was in the midst of the great flu epidemic of 2008 with David Pauley starting. They got their revenge on Tampa and Toronto after those sweeps, and have taken the early advantage over the Yanks.

I don't want to be *too* narcissistic here with the whole "Sox and Yanks are the only AL East teams that matter", but come on...the ****ing Orioles are not winning 75 games this season, and Tampa, while greatly improved, will not hold up through September. When the Yanks get their pitching together by signing this year's Aaron Small/Shawn Chacon who sucks elsewhere but is god in pinstripes, they are our competition. We have three games on them right now, so we can't squander too many of these Baltimore/Minnesota type games, but we're not having a Detroit Tigers season here. No reason to panic yet. Just frustrating to watch in action.

Cant agree with you. I think the Yankees are actually pretty bad this year, and trending worse. They just dont have enough of anything and they arent going to be able to get it this season. This is the worst miscalculation theyve made in recent years. I cant believe they relied on those young pitchers. They have too many injures already. Also, they no longer have the steady hand to keep them up until they start playing well... in the summer they will find out just how much they miss Joe Torre. Joe Girardi looks awful so far to me.

OTOH, I think the Rays are legit, if not spectacular. I think we're a significantly better team than them, but I dont want to underestimate the power of positive mojo...

That's it, right there.

Here we've lost 6 of 8 – in early May, when, by default, there's not a whole lot of separation in the standings – and all it has done is drop us to 1/2 game back, and left us stuck at "tied for the most wins in the AL."

And that's without even really having had a chance to fire on all cylinders yet due to various injuries and illnesses. The Sox might not top the 5 game winning streak they had at the beginning of the month again all season -- but I expect them to have a better month than 17-12 (March/April) at some point, and I expect them to routinely have better two week stretches than the current 7-7 in May. I don't see any reason not to think that the team's best baseball is ahead of it – and yet here we are, tied for first place if the Rays lose today.

I think over time it will shake out that the 3 best teams in the AL are Boston, Cleveland and LAA with a wild scrum for the WC that very well could go to the Rays. We always own the Angels, particularly because we own their ace, Lackey. Cleveland, however, at some point here are going to have Sabathia, Carmona and Lee firing on all cylinders at the same time and will be pretty devastating. Adding the new and improved (and unhittable) Lee to Sabathia and Carmona makes them pretty formidable.

I agree with Alskor, the Yankees look the weakest they have been since the early Bernie-Randy Velarde days. This Tampa series was devastating because both Wang and Pettitte lost, and while Mussina has been a pleasant surprise, I think his arm hits a wall fairly soon. The other two spots are a pure crapshoot.

I'm just not afraid of the Devil Rays...They HAVE to peel off at some point.

The Blue Jays are underachieving.

Baltimore is a joke (despite the sweep)

The Yankees look dead in the water, old and injured. Their young pitchers are shaken up, their old pitchers are really old.

Who knows how this year will shake out. The Tigers and Seattle have the two worst records in the AL, Tampa Bay the best and Oakland the fourth best. As for the Yankees, I have too many years of looking up at them in the standings to believe they're dead yet. Our friends at the "2008 Yankees regular season thread" haven't posted anything since May 10th. Are they that discouraged? or maybe all too busy?

I agree. The odds have been stacked against us and we're not even in a hole. One game back after Japan, Ortiz's opening 3 for 43, a less than stellar Beckett, Paps' blown saves, and a banged up Lowell? There is no reason to search for the panic button when you consider the circumstances and time of the year.

We've got Milwaukee and Kansas City at the Fens before heading out West. Seven games against below .500 teams at home is a welcomed sight. Things will be looking better after we take these two upcoming series in front of the home crowd.

This has been a crazy year, for the Sox and the entire league. When the dust settles after the break, I fully expect us to pull away in the division. The Yankees just don't have it, the Jays are struggling, the Orioles aren't much of a threat even at their peak, and I'll see the Rays' success as anomalous until they're contending in August. We're fine.

I expected Seattle to be this bad. No one should have fallen for that team. They have an atrociously bad offense, and did last year too. They were an extremely lucky team last year to even do as well as they did. They never should have traded for Bedard. Anyone with half a brain should have seen that was a deeply flawed team, but Bavasi chugged along as if they were in the same class as the Angels (theyre not) and mortgaged the future for a year of .500 ball.

The Yankees are another deeply flawed team that didnt have nearly enough pitching going into the season. You cant sit here and act like its a surprise the young pitchers you foolishly counted on struggled. That is what young pitchers do. Cashman left himself no outs there, no backup plan. This is about the fifth time in six years that he hasnt stockpiled enough starting pitching. Is this going to be the year they finally dont find the replacements they need? I dont know. What I do know is that their offense isnt what it was expected to be, especially without Arod and Posada. In past years they didnt actually find enough pitching to win, you see, that's why they havent won anything. They found enough pitching to not miss the playoffs - but their pitching was still terrible. The offense carried them. I think they finally may have tempted fate too many times... the offense looks old and tired. They'll put together some big stretches when it heats up Im sure, but they arent anything special. A couple key injuries took the wind right out of their sails. Injuries are NOT an excuse for that team either... they set themselves up for this. If this year is a failure they cannot blame injuries. This team was poorly constructed and didnt have enough depth. We didnt get to blame injuries in 2006...

Meanwhile the Sox, despite recent losses, look strong, deep and well rounded. Our offense is one of the top in the game again. Better than last year IMHO. The pitching hasnt hit its stride, but we have a lot of talented pitching around. Look around and try to find the holes on this team. I see two issues - bullpen and shortstop. The bullpen, despite some struggles, has a lock down closer at the back end and hard throwing, strikeout set up men. The bullpen isnt great, but its really not a pressing problem as in past years. Id love to see us acquire another bullpen arm at the deadline. I cant see them doing anything before then. Shortstop, as discussed ad nauseam, is not a strength, but I think we are getting enough there. Its not the kind of weakness that requires a move. Even if it did, we have in house options. Basically, Im looking around for a need here - something we could trade for to improve the club - and I dont see many areas where we need it. Relief pitching, as always, but its not urgent. We have a pretty damn good ballclub this year, and it has great depth.

I'll probably come off like a Donnie Downer here, but I see cause for concern in that we're only three games in the loss column ahead of the Pigs with all the troubles they've had - particularly the injuries at 3B and C.

I was surprised during the off-season that Theo didn't add a veteran BP arm or two like he's done in the past (Donnelly and Romero last year, for instance). It seemed like he was banking a little too much on MDC stepping up and becoming a top-notch 7th and 8th inning guy. That hasn't worked out and now Tito is sometimes left trying to get more than three outs each from Oki and Paps to get through the last three innings with a lead. If MDC can't get it together, I think they'll give Hansen and eventually Masterson every chance to fill the role.

I don't expect the Rays to stay in the hunt and the Pigs look old and tired. But if we don't find a third BP guy to be on the A team with Paps and Oki, it'll be hard for us to pull away.

Sure, but look at the track record of those bullpen veteran arms...

Romero - first man gone last year, WHIP of essentially 2.00 in 20.0 IP.
Piniero - second man gone last year, WHIP of 1.60 in 34.0 IP.
Donnelly - effective but injured for much of the year.
Runelvys Hernandez - released after spending the spring sucking in the minor leagues.
Gagne - Due to the above failures Theo had to trade away cheap, potentially useful second tier players Gabbard, Murphy, and Beltre. Gagne was obviously ineffective.

Given that, it's not surprising that Theo passed on expensive, "proven" bullpen vets. Look at Milwaukee this year...they spent gobs of money building a bullpen full of veterans: Gagne has been demoted, Turnbow has been released, Riske and Mota have been consistently mediocre. Since no relief pitcher is a sure thing in any season, why spend millions of dollars when the kids can be just as unpredictable for far less money?

So I just noticed that on this date one year ago today, the Red Sox were leading the AL East by 10.5 games. The strange thing is that I truly believe this year's team is better. It's just that the rest of the AL East is significantly improved(though I still think we're the best of the bunch, despite technically being in second place now).

What's more of a fluke, the rest of the East playing so poorly last year that we got that 10.5 game lead in May, or the rest of the east playing so well this year that the Rays have a half game lead on us? I for one expect us to win the division by at least five games, so this can't hold up.

This home/road thing is disturbing.

Home record: 21-5
Away record: 10-17

Just an early season anomaly? Since 2002, the only Red Sox team that finished the year with a losing road record was the 2006 team. Has a team with a really bad home/road split ever gone on to win anything? I realize that the Sox have lost 7 (seven) straight road game losses, so maybe it's just a bad run.

The '06 Cardinals were 34-47 on the road, the '03 Marlins were 38-43, both won the WS. The Pennant winning 2000 Mets, 2005 Astros, and last year's Rockies were all under .500 on the road.

Of course, it's the 21st Century NL, so it doesn't really count, does it?

OK. Thanks for gathering the stats. The Celtics broke the road funk. Red Sox turn.

Throughout all the crappy injuries, cheap blown saves and being swept 4 times...we are 32-22 at the 1/3 mark, on pace for 96 wins. It should only get better. We might have won the rehab lottery with Colon.

Gotta get someone to step up into that third reliever role or its time to go shopping for one.

Papelbon and Okajima combined ERA: 1.67
MDC/Aardsma/Timlin/Hansen combined ERA: 5.21

Thats the 2008 Red Sox Achilles Heel.

If Colon stays healthy or if Schilling comes back and is effective that role may fall on the shoulders of Buchholz and/or Masterson. I don't think they make a move for a reliever at this point, especially with having possible options in house.

Im still optimistic that Hansen will settle down. He seems to be a hard luck kid this season.

I hope you're right, I've been waiting for him to break out after seeing those AAA stats.