It's time again to check in on the standings in the AL East:
The Red Sox are still sitting pretty on top of the AL East standings. In the last week the Sox won series against the Angels and the Rays while dropping the game last night against the O's. The Yankees have fallen to 3rd in the AL East with their loss and the O's win yesterday. The Sox and the O's play 3 more games this weekend, so there is a chance that the O's could overtake the lead in the AL East, but they would have to sweep the Sox to do it. So far in the season the Sox have been more consistent and played better baseball than they have in years. They are hitting and pitching well, other than figuring out what is wrong with Jon Lester.
The next week coming up the Sox play the O's 3 more times, have an off day, play the Rays 3 times in 2 days and then face daunting Tigers. As with most weeks in June, the Sox are facing a tough week ahead of them. If they are able to continue to look to take series wins then I think they are in good shape, however it wouldn't take much of a slump to see the Sox out of 1st place this time next week. Buchholz was going to pitch on Sunday and now it looks like it might not pitch til Tuesday. If he is unable to go on Tuesday, the Sox will probably have to put him on the DL. With Jon Lester struggling on the mound that could be bad, bad news. I guess it's a good good thing that the Sox stashed Alfredo Aceves in Pawtucket instead of just releasing him a while back since it looks like we might need him.
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