Red Sox last stand

The Boston Red Sox did not get off to a good start tonight, in their series opener with the New York Yankees.  Boston doesn't have much of a shot at the postseason anyway but they need to start winning series and a few sweeps would help out.  Being 13 and a half back at this point (8/17) in the season gives them no shot at the division, if they were to take two of three this weekend, maybe they could still entertain thoughts about a wild card in which they are only six and a half out.  Not only are they these many games out of the playoffs but they have more than one team to jump over.  The Red Sox collapsed and did not win the wild card last year, since then they seem to have lost confidence and are only 15 games over .500 since.  I am not sure Bobby Valentine was the right fit, up in New England but their hands were sort of tied at the time as the other managing candidates were scooped up before they decided.  Bobby has never really been able to gain the trust of his whole team or the boston media.  In the Red Sox defense they did have a lot of injuries to key players this year, Carl Crawford, David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia and Andrew Bailey but every team in the AL east has had to over come key injuries, the Yankees lost Mariano Rivera, Brett Gardner, Alex Rodriguez and Andy Pettitte.  Baseball is a long season and sometimes its about managing injuries and who can do the best job.  With Boston it's not only Injuries Beckett and Lester, two of their stars are a combined 12-20, eight games under . 500 from those two.  Going into this season I was questioning the Red Sox depth, especially at pitching and its landed them at fives games under .500 with 42 games remaining.  Its been interesting to watch Bobby Valentine age during this trying season.  I've noticed Bobby V's hair getting a lot more grey since his introductory press conference.