Baseball is a funny game. One day your team looks great, the next day they suck pond water. Fastballs that the day before sailed over Landsdowne Street suddenly whiz past gaping Beantown batters and your pitcher couldn't get it over the plate if he were standing on it. It's a long season, and unlike other major sports, division winners have winning percentages in the .600's, not .750 to .900. That means you'll lose 60 odd games, even in a decent year.
The Nation should be inured to losing, especially those of us used to seeing the Sox drop 90 or 100 games and end up finishing 30-something games behind New York, year after year. Red Sox fans, however, take every loss as a cosmic rebuke: Almighty retribution, perhaps for sins yet to be sinned. Does God test us, like the Jews, like Job, when Manny hits into a double-play or a Wakefield knuckler gets past Mirabelli and a Yankee run scores? Is God a Red Sox fan or not?
We think so.

Nineteen games into the season, the Sox are 12-7, best in the AL and 4 games ahead of the Yankees, all that matters (contrary to popular opinion, Red Sox Nation doesn't hate the Yankees, we just hate the fact the Yankees win). This year Boston improved their pitching with the two Nihonjin, Matsuzaka and Okajima, and Josh Beckett seems headed for a breakout year as the staff ace. J.D. Drew is more than adequate as a replacement for the often-injured Trot Nixon in right, while Julio Lugo has been solid at short and leading off. On the downside, Coco Crisp still looks lost at times and neither he nor his replacement, Wily Mo Peņa, could hit a low breaking ball on the outside half of the plate with a car door. That, and our catchers can't hit for squat.
It will be an interesting year. For a change, the Sox seem to have a clear pitching edge over the New Yorkers and the depth to sustain it, with young arms like Lester, Hansen and Delcarmen honing their chops down in Pawtucket. The Yankees lineup, however, is loaded with veteran stars in their prime. Even if the entire line-up only had an 'average' year, they might break all sorts of American League batting records; they're that good.
This is war.
