E-Mail This Article to a Friend Handicapping the American League playoff race BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

It’s officially the (Rem-) dawg days of summer, and your Boston Red Sox are still in the hunt for the American League East crown and/or the AL’s wild-card berth. Heading into Friday’s doubleheader with the Baltimore Orioles, the Sox are 21 games over .500 and are just two and a half games behind the division-leading Empire Staters.

Sox fans, as always, are reluctant to give their hearts completely to their team, even though the Sox have played pretty solid ball all season long, and this team — with just 12 members returning from last year’s squad — has no real connection with the heartbreakers of the past. Still, the Nation knows, deep down, that George Steinbrenner is right: their team really hasn’t won anything yet.

And hard as it is to believe, the Sox — with a slim one-and-a-half-game lead in the wild-card race — could find themselves on the outside looking in come playoff time, as the surging A’s have made themselves a significant factor in the stretch drive. Of the Yankees, A’s, Mariners, and Red Sox, one team will not be invited to the Prince’s Ball in October, which will be difficult to accept for fans of a team that will have won more than 90 games in the course of this exciting season.

Boston and New York meet just six more times the rest of the way, but after this weekend New York will already be d-o-n-e with both Seattle and Oakland, while the Sox hook up with each of those rivals seven times over the course of the next two weeks — a head-to-head confrontation that will go a long way toward crystallizing the playoff picture. While Boston is knocking heads with those two powerhouses, the Bombers will be locking horns with the likes of the Royals and Orioles, thereby offering New York a splendid opportunity to open up some distance in the division if the Sox struggle.

Both the Yanks and Sox have pretty comfortable September schedules, with both squads getting the opportunity to feast on the likes of Tampa Bay, Baltimore, Detroit, and Chicago during the final month. With the slates so similar, it is unlikely that either AL East rival will be able to make up significant ground in the final weeks if one of them has managed to establish a decent lead in the standings. Therefore, a lot of people believe that the AL East standings on Monday, September 8 will pretty much mirror the final standings three weeks later. As a result, if the Sox are to have any chance of overtaking the pinstripers, they’ll have to take two out of three in each of the upcoming home-and-away series against the A’s and Mariners, and then dominate the remaining six head-to-head match-ups with New York on Labor Day weekend and the following weekend. When that sixth and final encounter in the Bronx is over and done with, the magical September 8 date will dawn.

Seattle and Oakland are a bit of a different story. Oakland’s current deficit to the Mariners in the West has closed in recent weeks and stands at three games heading into the respective teams’ weekend series with the White Sox and Yankees. After Oakland leaves Boston a week from next Thursday, the A’s will not meet another team that is currently over .500 until September 21 — a full month later — and only then will have some serious competition. And their competition? Who else but the Mariners, for back-to-back weekend series to finish up the 2003 regular season (sandwiching a three-game home series with can-we-finally-go-home-now Texas). Seattle’s schedule is remarkably similar to Oakland’s down the stretch, so those six games head-to-head with the A’s will more than likely determine AL West supremacy, as well as going a long way toward sorting out the wild-card situation.

Four teams, three playoff berths. (We’re ignoring the AL Central for the purposes of this discussion. And why not? Its champ will probably advance with a mere 85 wins.) Who’s got the edge in the season’s final seven weeks?

The Yankees have duly noted that they have remained the top team in the East despite losing a lot of man-games to injury, which is true, since Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, and Nick Johnson have all spent significant stints on the DL. Fortunately for New York, however, its starting rotation has been untouched by injury, and even Rocket Roger has somehow avoided his annual visit to the doc for treatment of groin pains. And it is the Yanks’ starting five that has carried them this far, with Clemens, Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte, David Wells, and Jeff Weaver thus far remaining healthy and strong. Their middle relief has certainly been shaky all season long, but the acquisition of Jeff Nelson and the shuttling of Armando Benitez to Seattle is a big upgrade for Joe Torre’s crew. Barring additional injuries down the stretch, it is difficult to imagine New York surrendering its hold atop the AL East, which is not good news for Red Sox fans. To have a shot, Boston needs to take care of the aforementioned business against the Mariners and A’s, then take at least five out of six in the upcoming series with New York, and that’s no small task.

The Mariners have the fifth-best pitching squad and seventh-best hitting team in the majors, so they’re solid from top to bottom. The addition of Benitez is not necessarily a positive, though, and therefore a lot will depend on the durability of closer Kazuhiro Sasaski, who hasn’t pitched since June 5 because of fractured ribs but is rehabbing in the minors and will likely return soon. Seattle’s proven that it can win at home (35-24) and on the road (34-21), but it’s got some older guys in the line-up on a regular basis. Oakland has already shaved significant games off Seattle’s lead, so the Mariners’ upcoming series against New York, Boston, and even Toronto will be critical. Don’t be surprised, though, if division honors come down to that final weekend at Safeco Field.

The A’s are doing it solely with pitching this season, and the promotion of 21-year-old righty Rich Harden (3-1, 1.33 ERA) from Triple-A has bolstered an already-deep rotation. Sadly, the AL’s top pitching staff has had to overcome its paucity of hitting, as the A’s find themselves ahead of only the lowly Tigers in team offense, and that may cost them in the season’s final weeks. Still, it was around this time last year that the team began its record-breaking run of 20 straight wins to take control of the AL West, so this squad is always dangerous, and one would be wise not to count them out anytime soon. Indeed, if they play well between now and those final weekend series against the M’s, it won’t matter if they fall short in their quest for a division crown, because second place in the West could still clinch their wild-card ticket into the post-season.

Finally, those Red Sox. Could they become the odd men out? Perhaps, if they continue to run hot and cold offensively as they did in their recent 2-4 road trip to also-rans Texas and Baltimore. Nevertheless, they’re still the top-hitting team in all of baseball and are on pace to shatter a number of offensive records. It plays significantly better at home (38-16) than it does on the road (29-30), but heading into the weekend, 27 of the team’s remaining 49 games will take place on Fenway’s magical sod, where the team is batting a mind-boggling .326 (a remarkable 36 points higher than second-place Toronto in the AL). Right now, Boston probably also has the top bullpen in the league, which is difficult to imagine after the ’pen’s, how shall we say, lackluster first half of the season. The starters’ ERA thus far this season is only 4.40, but the relievers’ is 5.12, so the team’s pitching is still a toss-up from night to night. Pedro’s obviously a solid number-one starter, but Derek Lowe (11-5, 4.96) has recently been unpredictable from start to start, as has knuckleballer Tim Wakefield despite his 9-5, 4.18 totals. Newly acquired Jeff Suppan got smoked in his Sox debut on Tuesday, and while John Burkett has been a pleasant surprise of late, how would you feel about him taking a start in a playoff game? Bottom line? The Sox offense must put up five to six runs a night to have a reasonable chance of winning. They must improve defensively (especially on the right side of the infield). And the rotation has got to start putting together some quality starts — and take them into the seventh inning or beyond — to give Boston a shot at even making the playoffs. The upcoming battles with the elites from the West will be a solid indicator of the Sox’ chances for post-season glory, and the local nine must do no worse than splits with Seattle and Oakland in the upcoming 14-game head-to-heads if they hope to nail down that wild-card berth.

And that’s their best shot right now, I think. Hope that the Mariners or A’s get jet-lagged and weary in their cross-country ventures in the coming weeks while holding serve and beating up on the weak sisters of the AL East and Central in the season’s final month. If the Sox can overtake the Yankees, more power to them, but as mentioned, New York doesn’t appear headed for a slump anytime soon, and its starting pitching alone should keep the Sox at arm’s length the rest of the way.

Sox fans have to hope that one team from the West begins to run away with the division, and that the second-place team fades from contention and wild-card eligibility. Otherwise, there’ll be a lot of moaning come October about all the games that slipped away in April, May, and June, because those will be the ones that could ultimately extend the team’s championship drought to 85 full seasons. Then Sox fans will have to ponder once again what might have been.

"Sporting Eye" runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com