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Watching a bit of the Red Sox-Blue Jays last night I was wondering the same question as a reader at Over the Monster. Do the Sox even care about winning the division? If they did, why would Francona put Gagne into the game among other moves (Dice K pushed back).
If you were in the same position as Terry Francona, would you be trying as best you can to prepare for the post season (trying to get Gagne confidence, etc) or doing whatever it takes to win now and win AL East for momentum's sake?Eric Gagne comes in tonight when a rested Okajima was ready. This comes on the heels of Francona saying he needed to get Gagne consistent work to be ready for the postseason.
There seems to be a pretty clear pattern developing here. The Red Sox don't really care whether they win the division or go in as the wild-card. When I say 'don't care', I don't mean to imply that they're not trying to win. I'm sure each individual player is giving his best and wants to win. And I'm sure if you asked any of them, they'd say they want to win the divison.
But anyone can say that in and mean it as long as its just vague pieties. The test is whether you mean it when the rubber hits the road and you have to make decisions like the ones Francona made above. All of them can be defended and look perfectly rational if you are viewing this as tuneup time. None of them (at least not the last two) can be remotely defended if it's a pennant race.
Do they even care? (Over the Monster)
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