The AL East will not be won by the Sox this year, it is now impossible. We've dug a nice 6 game hole for ourselves due to more of the same crap we've been dealing with right along. Ten hits last night, and we managed 3 runs, never seen that before huh? Freddy Garcia has been one of the worst pitchers in the game since the break, we had him on the ropes early (sound familiar) and failed to capitalize.

But no, it wasn't all the above that lost the game last night, we had to find a new and more inventive way to infuriate Red Sox Nation. Instead of the normal, tons of hits but no runs (which they did very well), or bad non-Pedro/Lowe starting pitching, or a putrid pen, the defense decided to take the night off. One absolutely huge, monumental error cost the game. All four of the M's runs were unearned. Fossum was great and the pen actually came thru for the second time in as many days. So what happens? Our best defensive player decides to take his eye off the ball for a split second and screw everyone over. It's something new every night.

Why do I say the East is a lost cause? Because this was the month we had to make a move on the Y-----s. This month is arguably the toughest for both teams, so if we were able to get hot, or even decide to play baseball, we could have caught up a few games. You think we're going to make up room during the supposed cakewalk schedule we have in September? News flash, the Y-----s have the same cakewalk for the month as well.

At this point I'm sure allot of people are looking at the 6 game deficit and also at the remaining 5 games we have with the empire. Assuming we're no more than the current 6 out of first (highly unlikely) we're still going to have to sweep the 5 games just to get within striking distance. Are you kidding me? No freaking way that happens.

This season just keeps getting turned into a further joke. After one of the best starts in franchise history, the best road start ever, our beloved Red Sox have found yet another way to rip our guts out. I really want baseball to be over for 2002. I think this is actually harder than last season, at least we knew that team was overachieving. Saying this team is underachieving would be the understatement of the century.

My only ideas for the space at the moment (that won't cause bandwidth issues) is to put a version of the scoreboard up there with RedSox2000.com in the innings, or to create and American Flag (using a table for you HTML people) with the current banner placed in the middle.

Ideas wanted.

paul@redsox2000.com