Final Score: Boston Red Sox 4, Kansas City Royals 0Kason Gabbard throws a complete three-hitter, strikes out eight and doesn't allow a hit until the fifth inning? The Red Sox scatter so many home runs around the park they make Fenway look like a bandbox and do all of their scoring via the long ball? We must be playing the Royals.
Ok, that was a little harsh. Kansas City may be the perpetual cellar-dwellers of the AL Central, but they don't even have the worst record in baseball or even in the American League! Surely having old Gabbo out there making guys look silly really means something in the scheme of things and isn't just because he's facing the Royals, right? And the resurgence of Big Papi's home run swing, Manny going deep (perhaps in an effort to top Frank Thomas's record of most home runs against the Royals) and P-Dawg's might-mite drive into the Monster Seats; surely those are not just signs of a big dog taking down a little one, right?
Here's what I'd like to believe: that Kason Gabbard isn't a fluke with an abnormally high strikeout rate that will self-correct as he suddenly self-destructs, that one day he'll make a solid third or fourth starter for the Sox, or the trade bait to a killer acquisition that doesn't come back to haunt us. I want to believe that Manny's about to hit the hot streak to end all hot streaks, to stand and deliver the way he hasn't for the past month. I want to believe that Papi's hamstrings are no longer so hamstrung, that three doubles and two home runs in the past 21 at-bats are the sign of the hitting apocalypse for any pitcher unlucky to face him in the near future.
I want to believe these things because if last night was a trick of the easy summertime living and the Royals' facility for destruction, if Chicago comes to town to dominate and the Sox go to Cleveland for more of the same, or for (an even worse) mix of on-again, off-again .500 baseball, I'm going to be sorely disappointed. Not because of lost ground in the AL East, but because slipping into complacency as the Dog Days creep towards us means that the Sox have let the easy summertime living smother them. Good win, boys, but don't let the fire go out for a moment.
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