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The Sox are now 1/3rd of the way through the regular season: 37-18 with a 12.5 lead over the Yankees. I preface my post with this since I think its important to remember that and not just have a knee-jerk reaction over the Yankees taking two of three from the Sox (for the second time in less than two weeks). As I said a few weeks back, I thought it was time for the Sox to bury the Yankees. That might have been a little overly optimistic on my part but I'll stand by my original idea: the Yankees are not winning the AL East. Not a chance. It still stung when A-Rod hit that home run off Papelbon in the ninth last night and when Rivera recorded a shaky save against the heart of the Sox order (Ortiz, Manny, Youk). After 12 of 18 games, the Sox are 7-5 over the Yankees, cooling off from their 5-1 start. More importantly, the Sox won't see them again until Aug. 28-30 at the Stadium. So for now, forget about the Yankees. It's hard to do for a paranoid fan-base like the Red Sox particularly when we're in the unfamiliar position of being heavy favorites.
Sox-Yankees is the best rivalry in baseball and maybe the best rivalry in sports (with apologies to Army-Navy, Duke-UNC, Texas-Texas A-M, UCLA-USC and Colts-Pats among others). We are spoiled as Yankees or Sox fans; the last few seasons MLB has chosen to load the early season up with a bunch of these games. This is all well and good and I still find myself watching the games like they're Game 7 of the ALCS. Regardless, we have to reprogram ourselves to stop looking over our shoulders. This season, the Yankees are continually shooting themselves in the foot (A-Rod's stripper escapades, Giambi's home run celebratory injuries and the revolving door of minor league pitchers) and did I mention that Clemens still hasn't made his big return, because of his fatigued right groin (insert joke here)? For whatever reason, they've stepped up against us lately and yet against everyone else, they look like the Devil Rays.
The Sox flew out to Oakland last night and begin a three-game set with the A's tonight, followed by five interleague series' in a row (at Diamondbacks, vs. Rockies, vs. Giants, at Braves and at Padres). Before everything fell apart last season, the Sox posted an MLB best 16-2 record in interleague play. Expecting a repeat of that is unrealistic given how hot the D-Backs and Rockies have been and how good the Padres pitching staff is but the summer is just beginning.

The Sox have everything going for them. There is almost nothing to complain about. The only thing lacking is Julio Lugo-who can't hit his way out of a paper bag at the moment-and the predictable struggle and subsequent quasi-injury to J.D. Drew. Coco Crisp? He's dead to me. The money spent on Lugo and Drew looks pretty bad right now but nobody is perfect. Dice-K looks like a very nice investment, Okajima is incredible (which no one expected) while Pedroia is hitting .333 out of the number 2 slot and has already proven me wrong. The bullpen is still questionable in spots (Piniero and Romero are complete garbage) but every team is like that. With the five starting pitchers healthy and Lester very close to being back not to mention Okajima and Papelbon at the back end of the bullpen, the Sox are built for the long run. Lowell, Youk and to a lesser degree Varitek are adding more offensively than to be expected. Manny has heated up after a terrible April and Ortiz is killing the ball, just not getting the home runs you become accustomed to seeing. This isn't the Red Sox team that will lead the AL in home runs or runs but 1-9 they'll give almost every starting pitcher a tough outing since they almost all consistently have good at bats.