Relaxing few days in the Bronx

It is too bad I was not watching the Red Sox play the White Sox yesterday on mlb.tv as it would have been cool to see Ozzie Guillen's head spontaneously combust when the Red Sox put 4 more runs on the board in the 5th inning of Sunday's matinee game. The Red Sox eventually won the game 11-1, and in the process tied a 58 year old Red Sox record by scoring 46 runs over a 4 game series.

I spoke to O'Brien this morning about Sunday's game and the weekend as a whole, and we agreed that one of the best things to come out of the series is that we-meaning me, O'Brien and the Red Sox-get to relax going into the 3 games against the Yankees starting Tuesday in the Bronx. Up by 7 ½ games going into Monday's off-day, no matter what the Yankees do against the Tigers on Monday (the Yankees still have a game against the Tigers on Monday), the Red Sox can come out of the 3 game set with the Yankees no worse than being 4 games up over New York in the AL East. This is where things stood last week and this is the worst case scenario. A more likely scenario is the Red Sox win 1 of 3 in the Big Apple and go back to Fenway 6 games up after an impressive 7-3 roadtrip. As expected, both managers have their pitching rotations lined up for the three games. On Tuesday, Dice-K kicks things off against Andy Pettitte, on Wednesday Josh Beckett goes against Roger Clemens-in perhaps what may prove to be the most exciting game of the series-at least pitching-wise-and on Thursday, Curt Schilling faces Chien Ming Wang.

Going into this series the Yankees know deep down that they have to sweep to remain a viable contender for the AL East division crown. The Red Sox know that they can lose three in a row and it will not really matter. By the time the Red Sox leave New York on Thursday, both teams will only have 28 games remaining in the 2007 campaign. For the first time in a very long time, the Red Sox can face off against the Yankees in August and not be overly concerned with the outcome. They can just play their game--which has earned them the best record in baseball this year. They can just relax.