The Yankees and Red Sox All-Star Break Narratives are Bullshit

It seems despite the same things happening every year we completely forget how baseball works. We rule teams dead every year before the all-star break and crown the champions of each division in the same fashion. It’s like we have complete amnesia to how a 162 game season works. Each narrative written before August just seems more ridiculous than the next and this holds especially true with the media in Boston and New York.

In May the Yankees were too old to compete, Brian Cashman made a gigantic mistake trading away their “superstar” prospect for a pitcher with a torn labrum, Phil Hughes’ career was over, they couldn’t get “clutch” hits, and Alex Rodriguez was still old and dating buff celebrities. Now at the All-Star break and after a few months of being ridiculously hot, they sit on top of the AL-East with the best record in baseball. Now we’re ready to just give them the Pennant despite them being in the deepest division in perhaps the history of baseball.

While I do think the Yankees are one of the best teams in baseball, (It’d be kind of stupid to say they are not, even in May) crazier things have happened than a team blowing a 7 game lead with 77 games to go. Crazier than saying the Yankees are going to win it all at the All-Star break though is saying that the Red Sox are done.

The Red Sox are 43-43 and despite having half of their team injured they have the 4th best run differential in the AL and 8^th in all of baseball. An atrocious start, bad luck, and injuries have all heavily contributed to the Red Sox’s struggles but this is still an immensely talented roster that’s only going to get better when Pedroia, Crawford, Ellsbury, Dice-K, Middlebrooks, and Buccholz come off the DL. They have scored the 2^nd most runs in baseball despite all these injuries and endured rough first halves from Jon Lester and Josh Beckett. While a 4.30 ERA pitcher might just be what Beckett is now, it'd only be logical to think Lester will have much stronger second half and pitch closer to his career numbers.

If you just read ESPN or Boston.com you’d think the Red Sox are 13 games under 500. (That’s where the Phillies are but you don’t hear the same negative stories.) There are even talks that maybe the Red Sox should look to trade off some of their players before the trade deadline. This to me is absolutely crazy.

They’re 2 ½ games out of the final Wild Card spot and they’re going to blow up their team? Can you name five rosters as talented as the Red Sox? I sure as hell can’t. If any fan base should know anything could happen in the second half of a baseball season, it should be Red Sox fans. I understand the frustration of watching teams with huge payrolls underperform like this but the Red Sox are playing in the toughest division in baseball and are right in the hunt. The St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series last year and weren’t ever considered a front-runner and I feel this Red Sox team, if it ever can get healthy, has more talent than that team.

I understand the negativity that is boiling over in Boston after last years September collapse and I get how tough it must be to cheer for a team with so many uncharismatic players. Despite the team being unlikable, they’re still pretty good and really only need to go a couple of hot streaks before they’re in Al-East contention again. I just cannot see the Red Sox playing under 500 the rest of the season and I feel like much worse teams have gone on to win the World Series. While we’re going to hear a hundred stories from now until the end of the All-Star break about how the Sox are done and need to blow the whole thing up, I think they are a trade or two away from being serious contenders.

The media has to have something to write about and highly sensationalized stories are what catch the public’s eye but that’s not good journalism. Instead of looking at it objectively and saying the Red Sox have actually played well to overcome a terrible start, the media has to hit the panic button. Anyone writing a story like that is just writing based on hype and not facts. It’s this kind of journalism that has led to there being so many unknowledgeable and prisoner of the moment sports fans out there and Boston and New York are chalked full of them.