A lousy end to a great first half...

Well THAT was a strange way to end the first half of the season.

Julio Lugo, Javier Lopez and Jeff Bailey come up big but Dice-K, Manny, Papi and Varitek come up small.

Go figure.

And of course J. D. Drew pops up to end the game and the Sox are swept out of Detroit.
And the Yankees won their series against the Angels and go into the All Star break on a roll.

And I am sure many of my Red Sox fan friends, especially the brilliant Late Night with Conan O'Brien writer Dan Cronin, are panicking. In fact I am waiting for Cronin's inevitable e mail saying we need to cut Dice K.

Relax.

Let's look at some numbers...
The Red Sox have the best winning percentage in baseball.
They have the biggest lead of any contender.
They are nine games in front of the Yankees in the loss column and ten in front of the Blue Jays in the loss.

The magic number to eliminate the Yankees is 67...
66 for the Blue Jays.

In other words if the Red Sox just play one game over .500 the rest of the way during their final 75 games (16 of them against Tampa Bay), then they will finish 91-71.
And the Yankees will need to go 49-28... winning 2 out of EVERY 3 games.

And keep in mind, neither Papi nor Manny have busted out yet.
If the Red Sox get to 95 wins (a 42-33 clip) the Yankees would have to win nearly 70% of their games.

So let's relax... enjoy the All Star break... give the pitchers a nice few days off... and come back to play some winning baseball.

Seriously Cronin... untie the noose.