With an upcoming schedule filled with relative patsies, Boston has a chance to make it all just a precursor for something truly special.
After leaving Tropicana Field roughly two hours before dawn, the Red Sox headed to Baltimore, where they begin a soft portion of their schedule. Because this is baseball, there are no guarantees, but at least the opportunity exists for Boston to turn its recent surge into one that truly lasts.
Beginning with the opener against the Orioles at Camden Yards, the Sox play 13 straight games against the dregs of the American League. The combined record of the next four opponents — Baltimore, Seattle, Kansas City and Chicago — is 165-212, good (bad?) for a .438 winning percentage.
If one wants to look even further for a reason to be optimistic, of the next 10 opponents, only three have winning records, and all of the games against those three teams — Cleveland, New York and Tampa Bay — will be played in Fenway Park. After leaving Baltimore, the club will play 14 of 17 at home.
Essentially, it’s time to make hay, especially when one considers what’s on the back end of this stretch.
After Boston plays Seattle and Kansas City twice, as well as Baltimore, Minnesota, Chicago and those three winning teams at home, it has a run which features four straight in Texas and home series against the Yankees (again) and the red-hot Rangers. The Ballpark in Arlington, where the temperature figures to hover around 450 degrees in that late-August series, has been a house of horrors; the Red Sox are 2-10 there over the last three years. Also, New York may be due to take a few games after dropping eight of the first nine meetings with its rivals.
Terry Francona never looks beyond the one game in front of him. Give him some truth serum and a schedule and he might admit to the need to take advantage of the next few weeks before the level of difficulty begins to increase.
That said, there are potential pitfalls.
Boston is still working with a rotation that contains just two of its original five starters. The club is just 4-5 in its last nine games in Baltimore, formerly a place of incredible fortune for the Sox. Seattle has the opportunity to start Felix Hernandez in the opener of its series in Fenway this coming weekend, and fellow All-Star Michael Pineda in the finale. The White Sox, who host the Red Sox at the end of the month, have won 13 of the last 15 meetings between the hue-hosed combatants. Boston is just 11-21 in Minnesota since 2001 (most of those games were in the Metrodome), 21-28 in Seattle since 2001 and 9-10 in Kansas City since 2005.
The Sox visit those three cities in August, prior to the visit to Texas.
Again, there are no guarantees. Boston could be under .500 during this stretch, then sweep the Rangers in Arlington, continue its mastery of the Bronx Bombers and roll through September to an American League East crown. Who knows?
On paper, however, the next few weeks of baseball present a nice opportunity for the Red Sox to turn a solid stretch of play into something truly special.
