Boston Red Sox

Power Rankings

Date	Ranking	Previous
01/26/2012	6	8
Good business: Teams that couple smear campaigns with organizational enemas don't usually end up with replacements as nimble-minded as Bobby Valentine and Ben Cherington. Bad business: The Yankees found some pitching, but the Sox haven't yet responded in kind. In the AL East, if the guy next door buys a Wi-Fi enabled riding mower, you have to counter by snaring a GPS-enabled/4G mower with racing stripes; that's how the game is played. Also, what's with the shortstop purge? Prognosis as of 11:14 a.m. GMT on Jan. 26, 2012: I count 10 great players on this roster. Can somebody double-check that for me?
10/31/2011	8	10
2011 eulogy: From what I gather, the season appears to have ended under less than ideal circumstances. Offseason to-do list: Acquire and distribute chill pills ... Muster the necessary cold-heartedness to tell Tim Wakefield and Jason Varitek that their services are no longer required ... Scour the universe for rotation depth. Having 9 guys on call for 2011 didn't work; shoot for 15 this time around. Odds of achieving Cardinals-like glory in 2012: Every team laboring under a dark, ominous cloud of transition should have a core as silly-good as Gonzalez-Pedroia-Ellsbury-Youkilis-Lester-Beckett. But sure, Red Sox Nation, feel free to yell "hardy-har-har" every time you drive past a KFC.
09/28/2011	10	7
What went right: During one midseason stretch, they won a nutzo-good 70 out of 103 games. 103 games is not a small sample; they were really flying that high ... The September apocalypse kept alive the metaphorical possibilities for hackbag writers: "And so the cruel end to the old towne team's sun-dappled, summer-kissed campaign births a coldness in our hearts, one matched by a coldness that even the fleeciest L.L. Bean duck boots can't prevent from seeping into our socks during the mean, stark winter," etc. What went wrong: For all the last-fortnight hysterics, you can only go so far when injuries torpedo 3/5ths of your rotation ... Questions the organization will be forced to answer in upcoming months include "Why can't we keep everyone healthy?," "Why is everyone fat?" and "Seriously, wouldn't Kevin Youkilis benefit from a diet rich in grains and lean proteins?"… Sweet Caroline and The Wave amid late-game collapses? Congratulations, Sox fans. A night at Fenway has become every bit the amusement-park experience as a night in Times Square. Regular-season epilogue: LA LA LA LA BRADY WELKER RONDO STANLEY CUP TITLETOWN U.S.A. AFFLECK AEROSMITH UPDIKE LA LA LA.
09/20/2011	7	4
I'm not one to traffic in conspiracy theories, at least not ones involving GPS chips implanted in my frontal lobe. But the strike zone during Friday night's Sox/Rays game was thimble-sized for one team and El Guapo-sized for the other. Guess which one was for the team that generates the better ratings and road-attendance totals and which one was for the team that plays its games in front of its mommies and a few peanut vendors? ... I think it's fair for Sox fans to get a little nervous, about flaws both obvious (the rotation) and less so (the lack of righty punch, the newfound worship of the sacrifice bunt, the inability to throw out would-be base stealers). That said, I wouldn't start packing go bags (MREs, solar charger for personal-electronics devices, Welker plush toy, etc.) or hoarding canned goods just yet. It's really, really hard to blow a two-game lead with only eight games to go. Even the Metsies couldn't pull that off. ... Oh, wait. Never mind.
09/13/2011	4	3
To recall the last time the Red Sox played this super-terribly, we must hearken back to the dark days of April 2011 -- before the weather got warm and icky, before Shaq tweeted his retirement from atop a pile of breakfast burritos, before promos for Whitney taught us how to laugh again. But just as Red Sox Nation weathered that assault on its civic self-esteem, so too shall it survive this one. The sabre-projections may say that your playoff percentage has dipped slightly below 98 percent, but we all know that numbers LIE. So ignore the mathy haters and stay resolute in your faith.
09/06/2011	3	2
Not that any of the four AL playoff teams can pitch much, but the Red Sox staff seems to be the shakiest of the lot. If Josh Beckett's ankle injury proves serious, the rotation basically becomes Lester and lint ... But forget all that negative stuff, because the Sox were man enough to rewrite the Unwritten Rules last week. According to the newly codified amendment, it is NOT permissible to clap one's hands enthusiastically after hitting a home run, and any such transgressions shall be disciplined via fastball to lower torso. But it's perfectly within the regulations to take a leisurely 84-second post-dinger stroll around the bases, and punctuate it by pointing skyward upon reaching home plate. Got it? Good. I'm glad we've cleared this up.
08/30/2011	2	2
Great news -- I've received a mercy exemption and won't be required to cover the three-game Yankees-Red Sox tilt this week. That's 17 hours of my life that I can now devote to ... something else. Perchance I could visit the supermarket, or stare at picture books of places I'll never visit ... Guess that Red-Sox-can't-beat-the-Rangers thing was a bit overstated. Steamroller, meet bicycle with swooping banana seat ... Speaking of pressed/pressured/pressurized Red Sox outfielders, Josh Reddick appears either to have hit a wall or stumbled into a trench. Here's a sentence that should make Sox fans' hearts skip with the felicity of romance rekindled: sooner or later, J.D. Drew is gonna approach the plate in a situation that matters. Prepare yourselves.
08/23/2011	2	2
Shall I rank the Red Sox second and the Yankees third? Or shall I rank the Yankees second and the Red Sox third? Or shall I temporarily cease giving a crap about this rivalry, because the next 35 or so games are only a shouty prelude for the 19 that follow? ... Given that we're way past small-sample-size territory, here is this week's ranking of explanations for the continued struggles of Carl Crawford (.251/.287/.386). 1. He's pressing. 2. He's tight. 3. He's pressing too hard. 4. He's pressing too tight. 5. He's pressing and he's tight. ... The Red Sox shouldn't have trouble picking up the run-production slack in David Ortiz's absence. But who will fill the wide-smiles-and-good-vibes void? Now's the time for aspiring rodeo clown and clubhouse hugmeister J.D. Drew to step up.
08/16/2011	2	2
So they lost a series to an inferior team? Eh. It happens ... I sure wish Tim Wakefield would win that 200th game already, so we can get back to discussing what really matters: How another World Series championship is, like, etched in the annals of destiny, because '04 + '07 = '11. That sound you just heard was the other playoff-bound teams choking on the math ... There will be something like 32 closers on the free-agent market this winter, so it's not like the Sox will work too hard to keep Jonathan Papelbon in the fold. But he couldn't be setting himself up much better for a payday, limiting the walks and longballs and sneering with renewed, vigorous upper-lip contortion. That's one angry face, I tells ya.
08/09/2011	2	2
With six games still to go, they've already claimed the season series over the Yankees. Given that both teams are playoff-bound until the earth dies, this matters about as much as the Sox's season-series record against the Royals. Nice comeback on Sunday night, though ... In the wake of his mini-diatribes about an official scorer who robbed him of a RBI and about his disrespectfully unextended contract, David Ortiz is entering McEnroe territory, where the whines and cries of persecution negate all the good that came before them ... They're 30-13 against the mighty AL East and 17-14 against the flaccid AL Central. Weird. Anybody wanna bet they start remedying this, like, yesterday?