This picture will be the entire gallery from Fenway tonight. Had a few other good shots, but it's just too depressing to show them. We had a 4-1 lead, and Beckett was kroozin'. It felt like 8-1. The game was over in my mind. At that point I planned to go down to the dugout for the final inning so I could be there with everybody else cheering on these guys so they'd know they'd have our support in New York and Baltimore.

Silly me. This is the September 2011 Stank Socks. The game was over, all right. Once again, the baseball gods sprinkled that magic dust on "the team playing the Red Sox." I mean think about it. If winning was losing, this would be a truly magical run. Instead, it's an assload of anti-magic, and fuck us. So by the time we'd fully blown the game, I was where I intended to be, and still was prepared to give the final regular season farewell should they get a walk-off win, but, no. Instead I left muttering profanities, wondering why there wasn't more booing. Three of four lost to the Orioles. Have you been this mad at this team this century? It's not like we're some talentless squad who's giving it its all but falling just short. We're supposed to be a 100-win team, but we look like a giant pile of hippo shit covered with tsetse flies who are tsetse-fucking the hippo shit's brown mounds. With sour cream lube.

Then I got to listen as the Yanks clinch the east on the way home. At least that means they won't do it against us. And it means they've got nothing to play for against us this weekend. But Jesus, the Orioles are 30 games out and they treated us like a whore who pays you. Anyway, the other good thing about the Yanks winning was that it kept the Rays 2.5 behind us. Kinda funny how the Rays only give a shit when they play us. It's like, Guys, try that hard against half the other teams and you'd be 122-40. They've lost three in a row to New York after leaving "their World Series" in Boston, with one more to play in the series. The Angels are also 2.5 back. Those two teams have 7 games left, we have 6. So we'll be either 2 or 3 up with 6 left.

Therefore, despite the massive shitburger with rat cheese we've been slowly grilling all month, I do believe we are making the playoffs. We only need to win a couple of these games--just by showing up and rooting for bad calls in our favor we should be able to accomplish that--and beep beep beep ourselves into the postseason's loading dock in the middle of the night.

And at that point I still say it's a new season, with everybody at 0-0. And our team--not the bizarro hologram versions of us you've been seeing lately, but the real team--is one of the best in the league. Everyone keeps saying, "all they've got is Beckett and Lester as starters and Aceves, Bard, and Papelbon in the pen." Well, that's actually awesome. They're human, so they have individually fucked up, but I'll take those guys. And hopefully Buchholz. Then we've got a great lineup who can put up 15 runs any given night. Again, those nights have been few/far between this month, but this isn't the playoffs.

And who would we be playing? Maybe the Tigers, who we've dominated this season, and then maybe the Yanks, who we've also dominated this season. The Rangers, not so much, though we do blow them out when we beat them.

So to summarize: Pissed! Boo! But, optimistic about rest of reg. season since even a semi-shitty finish should get us in. And, ready for new life when the playoffs begin.