As the 3 run lead dwindled away at the hands of Curtis Granderson it got me to thinking about some things. Many of those things somehow were positives. Don't ask how I'm positive when they blow a 2 run lead with 2 outs in the 9th, but it happened.
What I realized was first that if the Sox won they game (which they did) that they only lost 1 game in the standings to the Tigers. As poorly as the Sox played, and as hosed as they got in a few of those games by some poor umpiring, that's not too bad. I then checked out the standings, which I pretty much only do after wins, and realized that the damage is not severe. The Sox only trail by 5.5 games. There are still well over 3 months of baseball left. 5.5 games is far from insurmountable.
I then began to look back at the series and try to analyze what went wrong. Mostly I thought, damn this team cannot hit. But then I realized, that means they must be pitching pretty well because every game was close. And looking back at the scores, I was right. Sox pitching allowed a total of 18 runs over the 5 games. If you take out the game where they allowed 7 (a game they won if not for the missed call) it was only 11 runs in 4 games. That's pretty darn good. Couple things fall a little different way, and the pitching stays how it is, they aren't going to continue losing at the rate they are.
So all in all, this series was awful to watch. Monday I was left with a bad taste in my mouth because I thought the sweep was there, Tuesday I almost threw up, Wednesday was pretty much the normal garbage hitting we've grown used to, and today even with the win I still feel odd because of the blown save. But taking a step back and looking at it as a whole, 2 out of 5 is bad, but 1 game in the standings after playing a terrible week is not awful. It could have been much worse.
I also want to mention a few things about the 9th inning today. First of all, Brian Anderson deserves a lot of credit for his AB against Zumaya. In my mind it was already in the bank that was he grounding out to short like the rest of his AB's this year. Good swing, good base hit, great start to the inning. Then came my favorite parts of the inning. Getz's bunt was perfect. Make the defense work, and watch things go your way as they did. Then came the 2 AB's with a man on 3rd with 0 outs. Fields got himself in a hole and worked his way into a walk. Not a success knocking the run in, but not a failure, which to this team is like a success. Then came Podsedniks at bat. Great AB. He fell behind early and I could see the failure peaking its head out. Then the anti-Bartman made a great play down the left field line possibly saving the game. And a few pitches later the Sox win, and don't feel like the season could be gone. Hawk said, "I don't know what the psyche of this team would have been if the Sox lost this game." And he is spot on. Bad things would have been going through everyone's heads had they lost that game. Fortunately they did not, and now we move into interleague play which according to certain pitchers is a much easier league. (We will never forget, Peavy.)
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