Red Sox have opportunity to gain ground in Wild Card race this weekend

The Boston Red Sox have a prime opportunity to gain ground in the Wild Card race if they can take care of business against the Angels.

The current road trip has been a success thus far with the Boston Red Sox winning four out of five through stops in San Diego and Colorado. How they wrap up the trip in Anaheim will go a long way toward determining where they stand in the Wild Card race heading into September.

The Red Sox enter their weekend series with the Los Angeles Angels sitting 5.5 games behind the Oakland A’s for the second Wild Card spot. The Cleveland Indians are only a game and a half ahead of them for the top spot while the Tampa Bay Rays are lurking one game behind Oakland. Boston will need to leap over at least two of those teams to secure a playoff spot.

Fortunately, this weekend gives the Red Sox a prime opportunity to shave at least a game or two from their deficit. This assumes that they take care of business against the Angels. Boston needs to win the series and preferably sweep to gain ground on their Wild Card competitors.

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The Angles aren’t exactly a pushover but they are seven games under .500 and hopelessly out of the race at 14 games behind the A’s for the second Wild Card. They enter this series having lost seven of their last 10 games. Making matters worse, MVP frontrunner Mike Trout has been hampered by a sore foot that caused him to miss the last game.

These teams split a four-game series when the Angels visited Fenway earlier this month. One of Boston’s losses was started by Andrew Cashner, who failed to make it out of the second inning. An overworked bullpen that was stretched a bit too thin ended up losing in extra innings. Cashner is no longer in the rotation and Boston’s bullpen has been the best in baseball this month so there’s little concern of a repeat of this scenario.

Beating up on the fading Angels is vital to Boston’s playoff hopes considering the more daunting schedules their competition faces this weekend.

The A’s travel to the Bronx to face the Yankees for three games. New York is 49-20 at home and currently riding a four-game winning streak. The A’s managed to sweep the Yankees when they met in Oakland last week but they face a far stiffer challenge on the road.

The Indians and Rays will square off against each other in a three-game set down in Tampa Bay. One of them has to lose the series, so if Boston beats the Angels then they are guaranteed to pick up at least one game on either of these teams.

Boston trails Cleveland by seven games so catching the Tribe may be a longshot. While gaining ground on any of the competition would be considered a positive, the Red Sox would benefit more by seeing the Rays lose.

If the Red Sox and Indians both sweep their respective series, Boston climbs to within 1.5 games of the Rays. Add in a sweep of the A’s by the Yankees and you have our best-case scenario for the weekend. I know, it’s painful to pull for the Yankees to win but the Red Sox aren’t wiping out their 15.5 game division lead. If we can’t catch the Yankees then at least they can do us a favor by beating our Wild Card competition.