From Here On

The Red Sox have 30 games left to play, and here's what it looks like as September approaches.

18 of the 30 games will be at Fenway Park, and 18 of the next 25 will be at home. They have two nine-game homestands left, the first begins tonight with the Orioles. They play three with Baltimore, three with Chicago, and three with Detroit.

The Sox then move on to play four in New York, and three at Tampa Bay.

The Red Sox then return home on September 13th to open their final stand at Fenway for the regular season, again with New York for three, and the Orioles are back for another three and close with Toronto the weekend of September 20th.

That leaves just five games to play. Two in Colorado, and the final three games of the season at Baltimore.

22 of the last 30 games will be played inside the AL East. The Sox play the Orioles 9 times, Yankees 7 times, Rays and Blue Jays 3 times each.

The Red Sox play all but the two games in Colorado in the Eastern time zone, so all the heavy travel is completed.

And one thing you shouldn't overlook is the fact the Red Sox have FOUR off days in the month of September: 9th, 16th, 23rd and 26th (and play no doubleheaders). This will be very valuable, especially if the bullpen load increases during the month.

It is definitely a favorable schedule, especially after having a rough August schedule. If the Sox go .500 the rest of the way (they are 77-55 right now), they would finish at 92-70. They might be enough for a playoff berth. We'll see.

The homestand opens tonight with the Sox leading the Rays by 1 1/2 games, the Orioles by 5 1/2 and Yankees by 7 1/2. Both Tampa Bay and New York lost last night, so the Sox gained some ground even while being idle yesterday.