I would have guessed somewhere in the upper 80's before the start of the season.
It's only been 5 games to this point but it's sure as hell nicer that the Sox are 4-1. The end of the Tito era and the disastrous Bobby the Fifth interregnum had a series of terrible starts that kept the team out of the playoffs in some cases or foreshadowed the shit show to come in others.
Here are some memories which most of us comfortably repressed:
2008 -- Started off 5-6 but roared back to 15-7. Nevertheless, this mediocre start helped result in the Rays winning the division by two games over the Sox and allowed them to host game 7.
2009 -- Started off 2-6 then roared back to 13-6 on the way to another wildcard
2010 -- Started off 4-9 and only got back to 11-12 by the end of April. Won 89 games and ended up out of the playoffs by 6 games.
2011 -- Started off 1-7 then 2-10. Won 90 games by the end of the season but out of the playoffs by 1 game.
2012 -- Started off 1-5 then 4-10. Got back to 11-11 but slid back to 12-19 on the way to a terrible 69 win season.
2013 -- Started off 12-4 and kept kicking ass en route to 97 wins.
2014 -- Started off 5-9 before righting the ship to 13-14 by the end of April but the team couldn't even maintain a record that mediocre, sliding to 71 wins at the finish.
They all count.
The 2002 Red Sox was a team which had great strengths and also holes through which you could drive a truck, including being managed by a genial moron. One problem with that team, in retrospect, was that someone on the roster or management looked at their season's schedule and decided that the late season schedule was easy. We heard from the press at multiple points during the campaign that the team was expecting to make hay in that easy late season portion of the schedule. That Red Sox team was only a couple games out of the playoffs in late July and got pushed further and further out from there. The late season schedule didn't turn out to be all that easy. Human nature is such that if you give anyone an excuse to fail today because success is deemed certain tomorrow, you'll get more failure today. You might not get more success tomorrow but today's game counts just as much as tomorrow's. It's good to be 4-1.
It's only been 5 games to this point but it's sure as hell nicer that the Sox are 4-1. The end of the Tito era and the disastrous Bobby the Fifth interregnum had a series of terrible starts that kept the team out of the playoffs in some cases or foreshadowed the shit show to come in others.
Here are some memories which most of us comfortably repressed:
2008 -- Started off 5-6 but roared back to 15-7. Nevertheless, this mediocre start helped result in the Rays winning the division by two games over the Sox and allowed them to host game 7.
2009 -- Started off 2-6 then roared back to 13-6 on the way to another wildcard
2010 -- Started off 4-9 and only got back to 11-12 by the end of April. Won 89 games and ended up out of the playoffs by 6 games.
2011 -- Started off 1-7 then 2-10. Won 90 games by the end of the season but out of the playoffs by 1 game.
2012 -- Started off 1-5 then 4-10. Got back to 11-11 but slid back to 12-19 on the way to a terrible 69 win season.
2013 -- Started off 12-4 and kept kicking ass en route to 97 wins.
2014 -- Started off 5-9 before righting the ship to 13-14 by the end of April but the team couldn't even maintain a record that mediocre, sliding to 71 wins at the finish.
They all count.
The 2002 Red Sox was a team which had great strengths and also holes through which you could drive a truck, including being managed by a genial moron. One problem with that team, in retrospect, was that someone on the roster or management looked at their season's schedule and decided that the late season schedule was easy. We heard from the press at multiple points during the campaign that the team was expecting to make hay in that easy late season portion of the schedule. That Red Sox team was only a couple games out of the playoffs in late July and got pushed further and further out from there. The late season schedule didn't turn out to be all that easy. Human nature is such that if you give anyone an excuse to fail today because success is deemed certain tomorrow, you'll get more failure today. You might not get more success tomorrow but today's game counts just as much as tomorrow's. It's good to be 4-1.
