Jason – I swear, if they win it, I’ll have the biggest “I’m shocked and should kiss their fanny” entry ever!

Joel – no question, it’s tight. But, remember, not long ago, *the Yankees* were in 1st – and, now they’re 3.5 out. It’s the trending that scares me. Will they be 6 out in two weeks from now?

Josh – actually, this is what kills me – that the SP has imploded. Because I do believe that this Boston team is not great, and the AL East can be had this year. But, the Yankees will have to win, to win it. (I’m becoming Yogi!)

Shaun – I dunno. So much depends on Halladay, when he comes back, and how good he is.

I know they are 8 games out of first, but can we really count out the Blue Jays? Based on their runs scored vs runs allowed, they should be 62-49 and tied for 1st right now (Pythagorean Yanks are 59-51). They’ve allowed almost 70 runs less than both Yanks and Sox, and are fifth in the league in runs scored (only 3 runs behind the A’s). And Halladay’s been out for what, a month?

This may well be a three-team race.

The Red Sox have benefited from a very easy schedule as of late. They will cool down when the competition heats up. This is a very beatable Sox team, with many flaws. We might not catch them, but don’t turn them into the ’76 Reds.

Steve, No question Red Sox are better at Fenway, but tough teams are tough teams. All that I’m saying is that the Red Sox have a tougher schedule than we do down the stretch, and we go head-to-head 6 times. We go 4-2 over those games and we pick up 2 games right there.

This is a tight race. Red Sox fans will not thinking about magic numbers on Labor Day.

Hey SL, if the Yanks win the east, are you going to write the next AM: “See? I told you they could do it!!”

I’m in the weird position of now having to give you a hard time if the Yanks close.

How many of those games are at Fenway?

The Red Sox still have ten games with Oakland and the Angels. We have just three with Oakland. The Red Sox also have six games with Baltimore, who have always been very tough on them. And of course, they have six against us.

Now, if they play .650 the rest of the way, it will be very tough to catch them. But I would be very surprised if they played that well. I say more like .600 for the rest of the season. At .600 for the Red Sox, if we go 35-17 down the stretch, we catch them.

Not easy, but doable.

They always say that each win in April is one less that you need in September……..

before=perform in last sentence. My bad.

The Red Sox have been blistering against the Twins, Devil Rays and Royals — teams the Yanks couldn’t handle in the early season when they went on unbearable losing schnides every couple of weeks in the early season.

Take a look back to May/June:
May 2-May 5: Dropped 3 of 4 at Tampa
May 31-June 2: Dropped three straight to KC
June 6-8: Dropped 2 of 3 at Milwuakee
June 20-26: Dropped 3 of 4 to Tampa *at Yankee Stadium* (unforgiveable) and then proceeded to lose 2 of 3 to the Mets, also at home.

Not to mention they lost 5 of 6 to Baltimore in April.

Give us back 4 of any of those 18 losses, and the Yanks are in first right now.

Obviously pitching has been the main issue with this team this year. But it’s worth considering whether our Yanks are now paying the bill for games they lost — and should have won — in April, May and June.

We all like to see our teams before well against top-ranked competition, but it’s arguably more important to beat up on the little guys.