I wrote last week that a good ending would be with the Sox 5 games or more ahead of the Yankees. Well, it’s only 1 1/2 gmes, but I’m still pretty satisfied. The Sox showed the Yankees-even the Yankees on an 8-game win streak-that they could continue to beat them with both pitching and hitting. Give John Lackey credit-many of us believed that he could beat CC Sabathia, but he did. Despite a 6.14 ERA (down from 8), Lackey has 10 wins, just one less than John Lester, and several of his victories have been big ones.
The Sox now go on the road for 14 of the next 17. It won’t be easy, even in Minnesota and Seattle. Erik Bedard looked good in his first start, though it was a loss; he may be better in the rotation than Andrew Miller.
There has been much talk of the wild card lately. If there had been a wild card in 1978, the Mike Torrez-Bucky Dent playoff game would not have been necessary. Though the Sox and Yankees tied for the division, New York would have one it by virtue of taking the season series from the Sox (7-5). Boston would simply have played the better first place team from another division in the first playoff round..The Bucky-bleeping-Dent remark would never have been made. He would have gone down in history as an infielder who played 12 years with 4 different teams and had a lifetime average of .247.
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