Absolutely true, and the same probably applies to the Angels (if they're for real) with the Rangers, A's, and M's in their division. The Sox will need to tread water against the MFY / Rays / Jays and beat up on the dregs of the league to have a shot.
To your last point, the Sox next 10 are against Baltimore, Cincy, and Oakland. Will a 4-6, 5-5, or 6-4 stretch end the Sox season? Of course not, it's too early. But if they only go 5-5 and miss out on a WC spot by a game, it could be looked back at as a missed opportunity (along with all of the early extra inning losses).
I'd agree generally. But I think these next few games are very important, in a
gather ye rosebuds way. If they can't use this stretch against weak teams to better position themselves, it's going to be more difficult to do it later.
I say that mostly because from a
real politik baseball view is that we're really looking at the trade deadline as a significant cutoff point. There are a lot of possible outcomes (including holding pat and hoping for the best if we're reasonably in contention) but a fire-sale ends the season.
This year the deadline is August 2. July 17 is the last game before the ASB, and we might reasonably consider it a near-final take-stock moment, giving them 2 weeks to put trades together (one way or the other.) Although they might not pull the trigger on something till the deadline.
FWIW, the ASB is 93 games into the season. We're on 45 tonight, so by the end of the Birds/Reds series, we'll be a bit more than halfway there. It's probably worth putting the schedule here for discussion purposes. As a back-of-the-envelope strength of schedule, teams in red currently have a pythag of .500 or above, representing harder opponents. Green is a negative pythag.
BAL - 5
CIN - 2
@OAK - 3
@LAA - 4
@SEA - 3
OAK - 3
STL - 3
DET - 3
@CLE - 3
@TOR - 3
@CHI - 3
TBR - 3
NYY - 4
@TBR - 3
@NYY - 3
***ASB***
TOR - 3
CLE - 4
MIL - 3
@HOU 3 (Trade deadline on the second game)
So yes, the strategy ought to be: "
Gather ye rosebuds, right fucking now!"
It's also why a 2-8 stretch (which I don't expect) would lead me to consider the season as most-likley done.