Was it over when the German’s bombed Pearl Harbor?

What in the name of Ed Romero is the matter with you Red Sox fans?

Seriously! Ooooo. The Yankees swept us. The season is over…
I’m reading the message boards and getting e mails saying “Well at least the Patriots are going to be good.”

I’m sorry… is the season over? Or are there 51 games left?

This is rough… but is it worse than being one loss from being eliminated in ’03, ’04. ’07 and ’08?
(Yeah I know, they lost in ’08… but man they made it interesting!)

I understand the sweep sucked. BUCK UP! You’ve had your day to whine about it. But I am going to go a little Ben Bradlee from All The President’s Men on the Red Sox and their fans today.

“You guys are probably pretty tired, right? Well, you should be. Go on home, get a nice hot bath. Rest up… 15 minutes. Then get your asses back in gear.”

The Red Sox have a lot going for them… and this could be all swept away before you say “Roberts is stealing!”

I hear people bringing up the 5 game sweep by the Yankees in 2006 that essentially sunk the team.

But that year Manny quit on the team, Ortiz and Varitek went down and there was literally no starting pitching.

Manny is already gone, we’ve not had anything out of Ortiz and Varitek this year anyway and the pen is deep!

And I think the best thing Red Sox fans can do is to forget about the Yankees. Just forget it. Give them the Division. And then have the Yankees see what kind of a clutch October pitcher CC Sabathia is! (1-3 with a 9.47 ERA in his 4 playoff starts from 2007 and 2008)

But with 51 games left, they need to win one more game than the Texas Rangers and they will be in the post season.

How hard can THAT be?

Seriously, the Rangers have been a great story but remember that year the Rangers wilted down the stretch? Which year? EVERY YEAR!!!

And yeah Tampa Bay has played well and have tons of talent… but they have their issues as well.

Take the ERA for Scott Kazmir and Andy Sonnanstine and dail it. Someone will pick up. Maybe in Europe!

Plus the Red Sox have 2 terrific starters, a deep bullpen… and if they make it to the playoffs, they will probably face the Angels… with Lester and Beckett going 1-2.

So really, you are waving the white flag after a rough patch in early August? Are kings crowned in August now?

They aren’t even crowned in September!

The 1987 Tigers finished the season as well as any team I have ever seen. They stormed through the last few weeks, clinched on the last day of the season as the best team in baseball.

The 1987 Twins were one of the weakest playoff teams in history. They could slug, but their pitching staff had Frank Viola, Bert Blyleven, Jeff Reardon, Juan Berenguer and THAT IS IT! They stumbled into the playoffs with just 85 games.

And it was the Twins who won the whole shebang.

Make it to the dance and take your chances… and before you say 2006 Cardinals, they’ll be fueling up the Duck Boats!

How about this for optimism?

THE MAGIC NUMBER TO CLINCH A PLAYOFF SPOT IS 52!

Let’s play ball and remember… NOTHING is over until we decide it is!

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What positives can be found in THIS Boston Massacre?

What a difference a week makes!

Last Sunday, the Red Sox were 1/2 game out of first and had a newly acquired Victor Martinez installed into the lineup.

7 days later they are 6 1/2 games back and tied for the Wild Card.

They had 6 games against the Rays and Yankees and won a grand total of zero!

Folks. That’s as sh*tty a week as you can have baseball wise.

Throw in the Big Papi ‘roids scandal and toothless press conference and you have a nightmare and a half.

How can I find ANYTHING positive in this colostomy bag of a week?

I’ll try.

1. Hey! They are still tied for a playoff spot!

That’s right. Despite a trip to New York that resembled Griffin Dunne’s night in After Hours, if they playoffs started today, they’d play Texas for the Wild Card.

I take my chances there. Just play better than Texas (and Tampa) for the next 52 games and they are in the post season. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

2. Hey! At least the pitching was good!

Going into this series I thought “Beckett and Lester will win their games.”

You can’t blame them! They combined for 1 earned run over 14 innings, 9 hits, 2 walks, 14 strikeouts… and a pair of no decisions.

Plus the bullpen wiggled out of so many jams in the 15 innings heartbreaker that I got some confidence in them. 

Yeah, Bard collapsed tonight. BUT call me crazy, I’d rather have cold bats than rotten starters. And in a short series, I take my chances with Beckett and Lester pitching in 3 of 5 games. (First get to October.)

3. They might get to play the Angels in the post season!

I know I am getting ahead of myself here… but if they make the playoffs as the Wild Card team, they would in all likely hood play the Los Angeles California Angels of Anaheim in Orange County.

And if the Red Sox of ’04, ’07 and ’08 can tell you, playing the Angels is a wonderful tonic!

4. Admit it… these losses hurt a lot less after ’04 and ’07

Yeah they suck. As did losing those 5 games in Fenway in 2006.

Ask any Yankee fan what would they rather have… those 5 games in ’06 or a pennant in ’06?

Those 5 games in ’06 or any team other than the Red Sox winning in ’07?

Those 5 games in ’06 or the chance to have Yankee Stadium close with meaningful games?

The Sox have 2 months to make this a meaningless memory… or have some other team eliminate the Yankees in the post season.

5. Seriously, it can’t get worse!

The law of averages say that the Red Sox will have a nice winning streak soon.

The bats will eventually wake up.

They’ll win a few, get into a groove and things will start to look up.

I hate to get all Harvey Dent on you, but sometimes it is darker before the dawn. And sometimes you need to hit bottom before rising to the top.

At least I’ll keep saying that to myself.

6. Things can change really quickly

As I wrote above, the Sox went from on the verge of taking over first place alone to 6 1/2 games back in a week.

Things can spin the other way just as quickly.

This whole year, the Yankees have been Jeckyl and Hyde. They have had stretches where they look like they will run away with the American League pennant.

And there have been stretches where they couldn’t beat the Nationals. There’s almost all of August and all of September to play… and a lot of chances to be humbled.

7. Hey! At least John Smoltz is no longer in the rotation

Man it was sad seeing his career possibly end with a shelling at Yankee Stadium… but not as sad as seeing another start from him.

See you in Cooperstown in 6 years. (You should have retired with Maddux!)

8. The Yankees swept the Red Sox in 2004 and 2007 as well!

Remember when Jeter dove into the stands while Nomar sulked? That ended a brutal Yankee sweep in the Bronx that drove a nail into our hearts.

This can be put in the rear view mirror with a couple of wins out of the gate.

9. The whole “Big Papi Going To New York” scenario has been played out.

Now Papi has gotten that whole press conference scenario out of the way, can he PLEASE start taking those… ahem… supplements again?

10. If the Red Sox are dead… better to know now!

2006 sucked. The Red Sox were in first place going into August and by the end of August had fallen out of contention with the help of a 5 game sweep by the Yankees.

But was 2006 more painful than watching Pedro crumble on the mound and Aaron Boone smacking that shot off of Wakes?

Or Damon striking out with the bases loaded in the ’05 Division Series?

Or Drew striking out with the bases loaded in the ’07 ALCS?

It’s like when you are up for a huge job, wouldn’t you rather just know if you got the gig instead of twisting in the wind?

If the Sox are falling out of it, better find out sooner rather than later!

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The Mets aren’t winning it this year… so don’t make a trade

OK, I am expecting some hate e mail from this post by Mets fans.

I have my guard up.

Let me get this out of the way… I don’t hate the Mets. I have moved on from 1986 (seeing my team win two World Series helps.)

So save any “You are an angry Red Sox fan jealous because of the Buckner error” responses.

Fine… that’s on the record. Let’s get to the post.

I am going to type a few facts.

It is late June and the Mets are a sub .500 team.
It is late June and the Mets are a third place team.
It is late June and the Mets are riddled with an insane amount of injuries.

Carlos Beltran’s career might be in jeopardy.

Carlos Delgado is still unavailable and nobody knows what he will contribute when he comes back.

The Mets offensive output in the recent subway series was nearly matched by Mariano Rivera.

They have issues up and down their pitching staff.

Their line up resembles a AAA team.

The clubhouse seems as to be as enjoyable and healthy place to be as Eli Roth’s Hostel.

Now players are calling for Omar Minaya to make a deal.

Mets fans are screaming for a change in the line up.

Nothing I just typed can be disputed.

Now for my thoughts.

Omar Minaya can’t be blamed for EVERYTHING that happened this year, but for the third straight season since the Haunting year of 2006, the Mets seem like an undermanned team.

And what trade now can fix the Mets ills?

They need hitting. Who are they going to get?

Yeah the A’s are dangling Matt Holliday out there… but what will the A’s be asking for? I alluded to this in my Lion and Prey post. They want players ready for the Bigs.

If the Mets had anyone who was Major League ready, that player would be currently playing for the Mets! Beane could do better just taking the two draft picks.

They could use a solid pitcher… but anyone dealing a pitcher in this market would demand solid prospects in return.

If the goal of the Mets is to win the World Series, I submit this radical plan:

STAND PAT!

Why? Because this team isn’t a player or two away from being a World Series contender. Can you IMAGINE this team in a best of five playoff series?

How would they do against a Tim Lincecum or a Chad Billingsley or a Chris Carpenter? They made Chien Ming Wang look awesome!

It isn’t happening this year. They don’t have the horses and do a panic move now, they’ll deplete their farm only to be a Division Series and out team AT BEST.

Ah but Sully, what about 2006? The Cardinals stumbled into the playoffs and won it all!

When Jerry Manuel becomes a Hall of Fame manager like LaRussa, I’ll listen. Instead, I’ll call 2006 a fluke.

And yeah, there is 87 games, more than half of the season to go.

But it isn’t THAT early. What part of the first half of the season could make ANY honest Mets fan say “This team can win it all!”

A player that will help turn the season around would cost a Fernando Martinez, a Wilmer Flores or a Bobby Parnell… and even THEN they wouldn’t be better than the Phillies, Dodgers, Cardinals or Brewers.

The Mets aren’t winning the 2009 World Series. You know it. I know it. We all know it. So why sabotage the chances for the 2010, 2011 and 2012 seasons for an ill advised pennant run?

Why revisit Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano?

I say look back to 2006.

No, not Carlos Beltran looking at a called third strike… I’m talking about the 2006 Red Sox!

They were in first place on July 1.

They had a 4 game lead on July 4th.

They were in first place at the trade deadline but experiencing injury after injury. The lead had shrunk to a single game at the trade deadline. The bullpen and the lineup needed reinforcements… and the Red Sox had a TON of minor league talent to deal.

And the team stayed pat. I am convinced that someone in the front office (maybe Theo) thought “this team isn’t winning it… and there’s no way we’re tearing up the farm for an ill advised run at it.”

I screamed bloody murder. “YOU HAVE TO GO FOR IT!” I thought. Who are these young players? Why sabotage the present when you don’t know what those players will even do?

The Yankees tied the Red Sox for the division on August 1. The Red Sox went 23-35 the rest of the way and were completely irrelevant the rest of the season… finishing the season in a distant third place.

And they held on to Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Buchholz, Manny Delcarmen and Jon Lester and they very next year they all contributed to a World Series title.

Some organizational honesty went a long way. If the 2006 Red Sox made the playoffs, they would have been KILLED in the Division Series the way they were in 2005.

They held pat and won big.

Learn from that, Mets.

You aren’t winning in 2009. Admit that and 2010 might be the year that Fernando Martinez, Bobby Parnell and company give the team a spark of youth.

Remember youth?

Or you can wrecklessly stumble into the second half and set yourself up for another painful September.

It’s your call.article_url = location.href;article_title = document.title;var iap=new Image(1,1);iap.src=’http://www.rootzoo.com/news_pulse/auto_post/31537/be85873d3eb0bdd800228eb38e26a1ce?title=’+encodeURIComponent(document.title)+’&link=’+encodeURIComponent(location.href);