Dead season The Sox will make September a nailbiter BY SAM PFEIFLE

It’s often said that the baseball season is more marathon than sprint, but recent Sox games remind me very much of the races I saw recently at the Olympics. It was easy to be fooled. I didn’t know the first thing about any of the competitors, and that first burst was always so impressive I’d actually start rooting for some no-name. Even though the commentators were commenting on races they’d already seen and warned me that the leader was likely to fade, I still felt like maybe he’d pull it out, maybe she’d hold on.

Then, of course, somebody famous would win, as predicted by the commentator who had already seen the race, and I’d be disappointed.

Now, it is the Sox who seem to jump out ahead of every game then force me to squirm in my seat as they hang on for dear life. Remind you of any game sevens you’ve watched recently? And now they’ve jumped out to the wild-card lead in the sprint that is September and I’ve got to do everything but chain myself to the basement wall in order to keep from getting too excited.

I risked the jinx in this column just a couple of days earlier in this month last year, and I’ll do it again. The Sox are going to make the playoffs this year. And basically for the same reason as last year: The American League West teams who matter all still have seven games against each other. The Rangers against the Angels, the Angels against the A’s, the A’s against the Rangers. And the Sox currently have better records than all of those teams. So, no matter how the games turn out, it’s to the Sox’s advantage.

As I write this on Tuesday afternoon after a late-night victory at Oakland, the Sox stand four games ahead of Anaheim in the wild-card race, eight games ahead of Texas (some would call them "the fading Texas Rangers," but they aren’t so much fading as just failing to keep up with an impossibly hot Boston team; winning 20 out of 22 is amazing). Recalling the Olympic sprints, I won’t go so far as to say their lead is insurmountable, but if the Sox go 13 and 13 in their remaining 26 games, the Angels would have to go 18 and 8 to overtake them, with 14 of those games against Oakland and Texas, and Oakland would have to simultaneously go 15 and 11, with 14 of those games with Anaheim and Texas.

And I don’t think the Sox will go 13 and 13 the rest of the way. Eighteen of those games are against Seattle, Tampa Bay, and Baltimore, whose records are 51-86, 59-76, and 64-72 respectively. Even though Baltimore plays us tough, I’ve got to think we take at least 12 of those 18 games, but even if we only win 10, and split the last eight against the A’s and Yankees, we’ve got 14 wins and Anaheim has to win 19 and only lose seven while Oakland goes 16 and 10.

So, realistically, our sights should be set on the Eastern Division title and the Yankees, who are only 2.5 games ahead (just two in the loss column), and with whom we play two huge three-game weekend series: September 17 through 19 and September 24 through 26. Both the Yanks and Sox are home juggernauts — we’re 49-22, they’re 47-21 — so it seems to the Sox’s advantage that the second series is at Fenway. Even if they get swept in New York they’ve got the opportunity to return the favor. The pressure’s all on New York in the first series. If they lose even one, they face the prospect of giving up those two games in the loss column by getting swept in Fenway, an indignity the very-hot Angels felt recently.

The Yanks face the same collection of punching bags as the Sox (other than the Twins, but they kill the Twins) over the rest of September, so those head-to-head games might be irrelevant anyway. It’s likely going to come down to who can be the bigger bully, beating up on the league’s lessers, and possibly to the fact that only 10 of the Sox’s remaining 26 are at home, while the Yanks have 12 at home, and may not even have to play a recently cancelled game against the D-Rays (the Yanks asked for a forfeit when Tampa struggled to get out of hurricane-torn Florida. How’s that for bullying?) while the Sox finish up with a Saturday double-header and Sunday finisher in Camden Yards against those pesky Orioles, with Miguel "Miggy" Tejada battling David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez for the RBI title.

Or maybe it will come down to how the Yankees’ starting pitching holds up. The Sox’s front five look rock-solid while the Yanks have to deal with a patchwork rotation while psycho Kevin Brown’s broken hand heals up. Here are their ERAs: Javier Vazquez, 4.59; Esteban Loaiza, 5.45; Jon Lieber, 4.46; Mike Mussina, 5.28 — where would they be without the mid-season return of El Duque, at 2.62?

Are there enough runs in the Yankee bats to prop up that collection of number three starters? We’ll find out. I’ll hazard that there aren’t, and that the Sox are going to win the division. Why? Well, for some reason the Yankees remind me a lot of Gail Devers: They got out of the blocks fast, but they’re old, and kind of funny-looking, and I think maybe they’ll fall down before the race is over.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at spfeifle@phx.com