Not a Good Weekend

There just isn't that much to say. A half-empty Tropicana ringing with a few weak cowbells saw the Sox fall again tonight, putting them 6 and 1/2 back in the division and wild card. A particularly disappointing finish to what looked like it might be a glimmer-of-hope weekend.

Is it insurmountable? No. If Buchholz and Lester start going on 2 days rest, then the Sox are right in the hunt. But it's tough to see how they're going to make up these games without a dramatic improvement from Beckett and Lackey. The dog days have been lackluster, though, and even hardened Sox fans, knowing that this was possibly a make-or-break series, had a tough time feeling the magic of late-summer baseball. I for one only mustered a few choice mutterings when Jed Lowrie, the tying run, got called out on a ball a foot out of the zone on a swing that didn't go a quarter of the way around. But that was that, and that's the way August has been.

That said, there's a month of baseball to be played, and only a week's worth of games to make up. The Sox have the Rays for 3 more at home next week and a big 3 game set in NYC at the end of September. For the latter, ITM is calling now for a summit. I'm fleeing New York for autumn in Massachusetts, and I'm calling the Vicinos and Murphys together for one last pull. We might still be 6 games out with 6 to go at that point, but dammit if we're not going to believe against all reason. We might just reclaim the old Sox mantle - baseball's Knights of Faith.