Earn that spot.

I am quietly hating and loving the standings of the AL East. On the one hand, we have the Red Sox, my team from birth with whom I have felt an enormous emotional connection through good times and bad.

On the other, the streaking, red-hot, in-your-face, talented Rays. The former bottom-feeders who just couldn’t scrape together a winning season (Boggs or not).

The fact that the Rays are now a very comfortable 5.5 games ahead of Boston means little to the Red Sox, who will tell you that it just doesn’t matter and that they’ll catch up or take a Wild Card if necessary. They don’t care. They took the Wild Card in ‘04, ended an 86 year drought and kicked ass through a four game sweep.

Will it happen again?

The Red Sox need to get back the injured talent (no excuses; everyone who plays in the bigs IS a big league player and should perform as such). They also need to learn from their mistakes. Not as defensively sound as they could be, the Sox still enjoy one of the better defenses in all of baseball. Keeping their youngest players mentally checked-in will prove to be a hell of a task if they get to the post season.

The Ray and the Sox have six games against each other through the rest of the season. Standings notwithstanding, they need to sweep one or two of those series.

The other interesting thing is that they don’t play the Twins (very tightly up the rear end of the Sox for the Wild Card; 3.5 games as of today). As a matter of fact, they play Texas and Cleveland, which can only help the Twins and White Sox. Such a predicament for the Sox at this point in the season is not a good thing.

So! The help the Sox need is all about the schedule of the Rays.

Hey, Sox… Earn that spot.