Dragnet Beantown: Twins at Sox

If we’re reading the script right, tonight features a lanky Texan hosting a guy named Boof? Is this a cut-rate porn flick or an AL playoff chase, anyway?

Just in case you thought Josh might not be from Texas, there you go.

Regardless of bad names, Boston game against Minnesota this evening still has surprisingly far-reaching implications. The Sox are two games away - either via Boston victories or New York losses - from clinching the team’s first AL East title since 1994. Such a title would all but lock up the first round playoff matchups for the league, putting Los Angeles on a plane to Massachusetts for a first game either next Wednesday or Thursday, all while the Yankees prep for a flight to Cleveland.

Naturally, now that the Sox are already assured a playoff berth, the high-wire balancing act comes into play. This will be Josh Beckett’s last start before the playoffs, an outing for him to grab a major league-leading 21st win while also heading into the playoffs with a bit of gusto.

Meanwhile, Boof Bonser will be hoping to regain some of the strut he had in the season’s first half, when many - including we here at Sox Nest - were bracing for a major second-half push to put Minnesota back in contention in the AL Central and for the league’s Wild Card berth.

Neither one of those things happened, and now the Twins are playing out their string while simultanously bracing for the defection of longtime twin city legend Torii Hunter. The center fielder will be making his final Fenway appearance in a Twins uni in three days, and there’s plenty of speculation over where he’s headed next (Texas is a particularly popular potential destination, according to some sources). Regardless, there’s little doubt he wants to go out of Minnesota as a winner.

His chances of doing so will likely improve markedly if Boston can win the first two games of the series. Regardless of the AL’s best mark floating out there, it’s likely that the Sox will sit a full complement of their regular contributors as soon as they lock up a division crown. If they do.

Tonight would seem to be a better chance to start locking up that title than any other. If the Sox hit like they have the last couple days, things could easily fall into place. But Sox fans know not to get ahead of themselves, don’t they?

Torii will be pulling down catches like this in another uni next year. Or so we think.

Wait, no they don’t. Oh well. Here’s hoping they don’t have to look back in retrospective regret one more time tonight.

– Cameron Smith