Rolling another seven
In Johnny Damon’s estimation, this was the fifth straight “Game 7” that the Red Sox have won against the Yankees.
Well, technically, not really. If they had dropped last night’s contest to New York, they still could have won today and tomorrow to force a Monday playoff if it all comes to that. More down but not out than do or die, but point taken. Not quite the four straight they stormed to in closing out last year’s ALCS, but I guess close enough.
“We’ve been pretty fortunate with our backs to the wall,” said Damon, who scored two runs in his team’s 5-3 win over the Yankees, pulling into a dead-even heat for first place in the AL East, and setting up the rest of this weekend at the Fens. Boston needs just one more win to force a Game…um, 7 Monday in New York.
One though won’t be good enough. Not with the threat of a winner-take-all Monday in the Bronx.
“We have to win both of them,” Damon said.
A tall order, certainly with Randy Johnson going today, that powerful left arm of his getting lost in the bleachers, and shadows sure to creep toward home plate on the first day of October. Then again, in what will be a rematch of the instant classic in New York on Sept. 11, Yankee batters are going to have to try and pick up that ever-fluttering Tim Wakefield knuckler in the cool, afternoon shade.
But as if the results of a rollicking evening in Fenway Park weren’t enough to put the collective grin on Red Sox Nation, almost an entire time zone to the left, the Chicago White Sox were putting the finishing touches on an extra-inning, 2-1 affair in Cleveland, dropping the Indians a game in back of both Boston and New York in the wild card hunt.
Good news. In a vigilant sort of way.
If Boston wins today and Cleveland loses, a common cause for the Tribe this week, then the Sox not only go up a game on the Yankees, but two games on the Indians for the wild card as well, with the Yankees still clinging to a one-game lead over Cleveland. Now, my math ain’t so good (as regular readers to this space will more than attest) but that would seem to mean that even if the Yankees won Sunday to pull into a first-place tie in the East, the Indians would still be lagging behind with a Sunday win of their own, one game behind both teams.
And thus, I quote: — If the Yankees and Red Sox finish tied at 95-67, with better records than the Indians: Both New York and Boston make the playoffs, the Indians would be out. Because both the Yankees and Red Sox would be assured spots, then the head-to-head record comes into play; in this case, the Yankees would have a better record vs. Boston and be the AL East champion and the Red Sox would win the wild card.
Presto, and it’s on to Chicago for Tuesday to open the ALDS against old friend Carl Everett. Simple. Sit back, win one of the next two and let Ozzie’s boys take care of the rest. Sox and Sox. 1917 vs. 1918.
Well, maybe not. If anything though, the Boston-Cleveland win-loss combo Friday night might have opened a few doors, but those could just as easily be closed this afternoon, and good luck finding the key until Sunday, Monday, or even Tuesday. The easiest thing for the Red Sox in all of this is probably to go out and do things the more difficult way to stamp their ticket to October.
Win both.
Get ready for Game 7. Round 6.
