What? This surprises you?
Is this the same f#$king team I was watching in April? The names may be the same, but the players have clearly been double-dosing on Vitamin Awesome. Because all of a sudden, everything they touch turns to gold.
We’ve won seven of our last eight games and four straight, counting last night’s second consecutive victory over the Rays–AKA the keepers of the best record in baseball. This morning, we’re only one and a half games behind the Yankees, and one-half game from leapfrogging the logic-defying Blue Jays, who have clearly made some pact with the devil that they’re only allowed to fade to obscurity after Katy Perry (So Katy, please hurry the f$%k up with that). And from top to bottom, the guys are finally playing like a team of Charles Mansons instead of Charles Nelson Reillys.
Yes, Ortiz and Youkbacca are slapping the ball like it owes them money and Beltre is currently outperforming my expectations at the plate. But the real heroes have been the starters, who’ve morphed from posers [there’s a reason that only three AL teams have worse ERAs than the Red Sox] to atomic-powered ass-kickers in what seems the blink of an eye. Hell, that run prevention thing has even kicked in; our starters have allowed just one earned run over their last 28 innings.
And the fact that Josh Beckett is currently the most unreliable arm of the bunch doesn’t worry me at all. Because I know he’s going to right himself at some point, and that he and Lackey are thisclose to going Texas Chainsaw Massacre on all who would oppose them. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if the two of them are right now sitting in some shady saloon on Florida’s outskirts, drawing up plans for concealing ICBM launchers in their cleats.
Sure, as the Eagles once warned us, it could all fall to pieces tomorrow. But right now, the Sox are looking like the hottest thing since legalized prostitution while the Rays are sputtering back to reality. And I’ll take that as long as it lasts.
