There's An Old Saying

[TheMeanWalrus]

"Spahn and Sain and Pray for Rain"

 

It goes back to the days of the ooooooold Braves teams when they had two great starting pitchers and pretty much nothing else.

 

Our Red Sox are similar right now

EXCEPT Jon Lester ain't no Warren Spahn and Josh Beckett is no Johnny Sain.

 

Anyone who's read my inane ramblings over the years knows I am a firm believer that to win in October, you need five things

1. Pitching

2. Pitching

3. Pitching

4. Defense (especially up the middle ... C, SS, 2B, CF)

5. Timely hitting

 

We're pretty much f***ed on 1-3

4 is fine, better than average

and 5 is ok because that team can hit

 

The problem is that in most post-seasons, like 99%, all the offense in the world aint gonna overcome a sub par pitching staff and right now, "sub-par" is a VERY GENEROUS description of the Sox staff.

 

I'm not throwing in the towel because if a collapse of this proportion is possible, than a positive turn around of the same magnitude is also possible if they manage to luck their way into the post season

 

But the fact of the matter is this ....

Pitching wins in October

And this team ain't even close right now in that regard. Whats winning the Wild Card get em?

A chance

A fleeting chance for a staff in a downward spiral to bounce back and for guys who have no right stepping up doing just that

 

It's happened before

But it don't happen often so keep expectations tempered lest you find yourself ready to jump out a window in the coming days