14.5 games up and Giddy as a schoolgirl

This is the sort of scenario you dream about in the preseason. The Red Sox are firing on all cylinders handing loss after loss to the best teams MLB has to offer. Josh Beckett has finally recovered from his minor injury and seems to have rejoined the rotation without missing a beat. We can afford to give David Ortiz a few extra days to recover from a minor hamstring injury because hey, no use blowing out the guys when you've got 14.5 games on the Yankees. The Yankees on the other hand are absolutely falling apart. Alex Rodriguez's hot bat has finally cooled off enough that he's no longer carrying their offense and the starting pitching continues to give up runs. The only relief in sight is the return of Roger Clemens. I can only say that I think Roger will be an improvement on an extremely lackluster pitching staff, but it won't be enough. I would question whether he would be enough even if the Rocket was in his prime. With some mixed results in various minor league starts, the Rocket's advanced age and the fact that he'll be going up against some solid AL hitting rather than the soft NL lineups he's faced the past few years with the astros strikes me as a recipe for disappointment for Yankee fans. Will he get lit up every night and booed out of baseball once and for all? Probably not. Will he be the Yankees knight in shining armor who's going to turn the corner for the Yankees, anchor the pitching staff and rebuild the confidence of the Yankees as every New Yorker has his fingers crossed that he will? I doubt it. The Red Sox are just too strong right now with 2.5 Games over the NL best Mets and 4.5 over the AL's second best Indians, whom the sox have roughed up for 2 wins in 2 games, going for the sweep tonight with Daisuke on the mound tonight. The sox have proven that they can beat the best, they're resilient in the face of injuries due to their excellent depth. The bulk of the offense has not been provided solely by the 3 and 4 spots as we had come to expect from the Sox offense, but rather from a number of sources. Kevin Youkilis is atop the AL for batting average tied for second behind Jorge Posada. Other contributors include Mike Lowell and Dustin Pedroia as of late who have been contributing to the offense. It really doesn't get much better than this.