Falling backward in the standings amid a five gave losing streak, Boston finally snaps out of it with a monstrous 18-6 drubbing of the Blue Jays.
After heaven only knows how many tries, Tim Wakefield finally got his 200th win last night, when the team so desperately needed it. A 96 pitch, 5 run effort over 6 innings, the league's oldest player joined a pretty short list of Red Sox pitchers with 200 wins.
I couldn't be happier for Wake as he's shown a sense of team and honor rarely seen in sports today. Though he prefers to be a starter, he accepted a lesser role for a couple of seasons, working middle relief and even spot closer duty before returning to the rotation full time. Never a peep or gripe in the media; like team captain Jason Varitek, Wake simply did whatever he could to help his team and teammates be successful.
To jerks like local sports tool Tom Jones of the St. Pete Times -- that's what makes the Red Sox a successful organization!
Coupled with a Rays loss, the Sox once again have a four game lead in the wild card race.
Speaking on that subject -- with the mounting injuries, the Sox have been reeling going 1-6 on their recent road trip. I'm not one of those minutia guys about baseball, so I don't know if their falling completely out of the playoff picture would be historic or epic or what. What I do know is that I would rather see them miss the playoffs completely, rather than back in and get slaughtered in the first round.
I saw where Theo Epstein said pretty much the same thing in the papers recently. With the Rays coming into Boston for a four game series this weekend, he stated that if they couldn't beat back the Rays and come into the playoffs looking like the team that had baseball's best record over the summer, then they didn't deserve to be in the playoffs.
He's right.
It'll be an interesting weekend.
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