After settling down from the explosive 4-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday, the Sox enter a critical 3-game set with the Tampa Bay Rays as the calendar ticks away. There are currently just 34 games to play and 5.5 games to make up, not a promising scenario. The team has gone past the need to win games and are now in desperation mode, because as Ian Browne of MLB.com pointed out on twitter yesterday, in order to make he postseason, the Sox need to go a crazy 25-34 while the Rays or Yanks go at best 19-16. The chance the Sox lose just 9 games the rest of the year and the Rays or Yanks lose 16 is slim to none, but if the Sox want to pull out a momunmental comeback, they need to beat the Rays this weekend.
Thanks to Daisuke Matsuzaka‘s sore back, the Sox have lined-up their 3 best pitchers to face the Rays, beginning with Jon Lester on Friday night. Lester got shelled his last time out against the Toronto Blue Jays allowing 9 earned runs in just 2 innings, but with an extra few days rest, has the chance to get right back on track and start the series with a big W against 15-5 David Price. The Sox then have Cy Young candidate Clay Buchholz toe the rubber in game 2 against Red Sox killer Matt Garza, who the Sox hope is off his game. In the final game of the series, John Lackey will try to bring his A-game and keep the Sox alive in both the AL East and AL Wild Card against James Shields.
With this season slipping away faster than a 7-year old on a waterslide, the only chance for survival is this weekend in the head-to-head matchup. If the Sox don’t win at least 2 games, the season is over and the players know it. In a quote in the Boston Globe yesterday, Adrian Beltre said, “We have to start gaining some ground, this is getting kind of late.” The Sox need to rely heavily on their rotation, because if they can quiet the Rays lineup and collect some hits against the 3-headed monster of David Price, Matt Garza and James Shields, they have a chance. That’s a tall order, considering the 3 pitchers have a combined 40-23 record and Price and Garza have been deadly against the Sox in recent history.
If the Sox are going to win this weekend, they need to be strong on all sides of the ball and put out a true team effort. It seems like a simple concept, but it has been a struggle this season for the Sox to play solid defense, hit well and pitch well in the same game, and with the top tier lineup and rotation of the Rays, an error or a missed location can lead to a big inning or a missed opportunity. Now is their chance to make it happen, any slip-up spells doom.
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