Home Stretch

It is September 21 and the regular season is scheduled to end on October 3. With 12 games left to play, the Red Sox are 83-67. They sit 8 games out of first in the AL East and 6.5 games back in the Wild Card. We have two games left against the Baltimore Orioles, a three-game series this weekend at Yankee Stadium, a four game series against the Chicago White Sox next week and we end our regular season at home in a three-game series against those awful pinstripes.

Me…negativity? Yeah, right!

Most people would say that this year has been somewhat of a disaster. I highly disagree. OK, so we’ve been dealt some tough hands, and we’ve been thrown some nasty curve-balls. But, the success that we have had this year despite the injuries we have sustained is remarkable. We have played the majority of the season without some of our key players and have managed to stay in contention.

We still have 12 games left and Clay Buchholz will be starting tonight in the second game against the Orioles. He’s looking for his 17th win this season and with a 2.48 ERA, he has continually been a starter that we can depend on every outing. He is holding opponents to a .229 average this season and is 7-4 with a 2.38 ERA in 12 starts at Fenway.

Our starting line-up for tonight’s game is as follows:

1. Scutaro, M    2B .272 AVG
2. Drew, J         RF .257 AVG
3. Martinez, V     C .296 AVG
4. Ortiz, D        DH .261 AVG
5. Beltre, A       3B .327 AVG
6. Lowrie, J      SS .259 AVG
7. Kalish, R      CF .233 AVG
8. Nava, D        LF .246 AVG
9. Anderson, L  1B .267 AVG

As important as it is to have an ace on the mound, you can’t win games without scoring runs. The Red Sox, this season, seem to leave runners on base in very critical situations. We need to see more clutch hitting throughout our entire line-up. We can’t continue to count on a few players to drive in runs (Adrian Beltre and David Ortiz lead the team in RBIs with 98 and 92 respectively). Let’s make these last 12 games interesting, and not back down now!

Whether or not we can mathematically come back and make it to the
playoffs really doesn’t matter to me anymore. I love baseball and I love watching my team win games. I just want to see all of our guys succeed and play great baseball. We need to go out with a bang!

What’s
really started to sink in, though, is that we are in the home stretch…
baseball season is coming to an end and I am not happy about it!

Go Red Sox!
Jenn