Only 10 days left in Red Sox season? (update)

The season is over?

Eric D. Schabell
Contributing Writer

On June 23rd, the Red Sox were poised to begin a 10 day trip through three of their four division rivals.

A chance to either get back into it all, or fall off the cliff.

We took the time here to outline their position, look at their chances and explain what was at stake.

Obviously the Red Sox did not really seem to get that same sense of urgency that this season is all but lost without a massive push to win games. Not just win games, but push to win games at an extreme rate.

Here we are now six games into the Red Sox last 10 days of the 2015 season. Time to take a look and update their progress. How does it look?

In a word: dismal.

Let's be really clear here, it is a hair away from being over Red Sox Nation and here is why.

BARRY CHIN/GLOBE STAFF/FILE

They came into the last 10 days of their season 8.5 games back in the AL East, in last place. With three games at home against the Orioles, they could have made up ground, yet lost two of three. Not only that, it was a series that saw Dustin Pedroia hurt his right hamstring landing him on the disabled list. Hanley Ramirez has yet to be put on the disabled list, yet has not played a game since Xander Bogearts drilled him in the hand with a line drive while Ramirez was attempting to steal second base.

Lost two games and the heart of the offense at the same time.

Not only that, Joe Kelly put together another tragic start on the mound causing the Red Sox to demote him to Pawtucket. Kelly's start cost them a game in the 10 day run where they can't afford to give them away like bobblehead's.

Next up it was off to Tampa Bay for three games against the Rays.

The Red Sox were able to take two of the three games, but that is not going to be enough. It was good to see the offense scoring more than 4 runs in these games, it will require much more to make up enough ground to win either the division or wild card. Note that the wild card race is about the same distance to win as the AL East is, with Red Sox 7.5 games back in the wild card and 8.0 games back in their division.

NESN / MLB.COM

Now it is off to the Great White North, where the Red Sox face the Blue Jays in a four game series. With their incredibly strong offense, where any portion of their lineup can flash power, it will be a tough test for the starting rotation to keep them in check. The offense needs to show up and play it's A game, or this could get ugly fast.

So back to the original question posed before these 10 days starts, is the season a wash out?

Let's see what the Red Sox, who still have not won as many as three games in a row since the first week of the season, need to do moving forward to capture the AL East. At 34-43 and in order to win 90 games, to contend for postseason, the Red Sox would have to go 56-29 the rest of the way, a .659 percentage.

To the ends of the season they have 27 series to play, meaning the Red Sox can drop a game a series to achieve 90 wins.

Having not won three games in a row since the first week of the season tells us volumes here.

Let's imagine, or better yet dream, that the Red Sox take two games and lose one the rest of the 85 games remaining. This gives them just over 56 wins, which is exactly what they need.

Let me repeat this, if they can continue from now until end of the season winning two of every three games they will hit exactly 90 games in the win column. This makes it all worth watching, but every series from now until the end of the season is a playoff for the Red Sox.

Ignore the media hype about giving up on the Red Sox season, this is why ownership and the players are not giving up, it is still possible.

A fire sale is not called for, yet.

The question is, can this Red Sox team pick it up every single series until the end of the season?

Starting the four game series tonight against a powerful Blue Jays line up, we will find out soon enough.

Post a comment or via twitter @erics_redsox with your thoughts.

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