E-Mail This Article to a Friend Boston and NY pin their hopes on the final 100 BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

Last month, the Boston Globe implemented a promotion that allowed readers to purchase the 2004 Boston Red Sox pin collection. Throughout the last month, the paper has printed coupons in its pages each day to allow fans to purchase the pins one by one, with each pin representing one of the 24 featured players (only members of the Players’ Union are included, so that means no Kevin Millar and Brian Daubach). With coupon in hand, consumers can go to participating outlets and purchase that day’s pin — or buy the entire collection at once for the full price of $125 (which comes to more than five bucks per pin) to place in an album.

The implication of this promo is unmistakably clear: don’t miss out on this collectors’ series, because it is destined to become a valuable keepsake. That is, if the Red Sox win the World Series. Otherwise, it will merely provide a casual reminder (albeit an expensive one) of the disappointment of the win-it-or-else edition of the 2004 Sox.

Boston begins this week with exactly 100 games remaining in the regular season. After taking two of three at home against the Dodgers and Padres, the Sox are now 37-25, three-and-a-half games behind the front-running Yankees in the AL East. Boston’s record is third-best in the league and in the majors, and considering the plethora of injuries that have hampered the Sox’ ability to field their full squad on a nightly basis, the team’s performance has been reasonably remarkable. While the divisional deficit might be disappointing to some, it must be noted that the three-and-half-game bulge remains the farthest behind the Pinstripers that Boston has been all season, and that’s particularly noteworthy considering that the Yanks have won 16 of their last 19 contests en route to their 40-21 mark.

Over in the AL Central, the White Sox and Twins are neck-and-neck for divisional honors, while Oakland maintains a two-game lead over Texas and Anaheim in the West. Even at this early juncture, it seems fair to say that the quartet of playoff teams representing the AL will come from those five teams plus NY-Boston (and imagining Texas staying in the race long-term is a stretch), but the most gripping race continues to play out in the AL East, where the Orioles, Jays, and Rays have already pretty much written themselves out of contention.

With 100 games to go, let’s focus — as New Englanders unfailingly tend to do — on the Red Sox and the Yankees.

• Pitching. On paper, the Sox were supposed to have a slight advantage in this department, but injuries to fifth starter Byung-Hyung Kim and set-up men Scott Williamson and Ramiro Mendoza, along with the inconsistent and disappointing performances of Derek Lowe, Bronson Arroyo, and even stalwart Tim Wakefield have knocked the team all the way down to only the 10th-best in baseball in ERA (3.97). Still, that’s good enough for second in the AL, while the Yanks sit fourth at 4.36. The Sox have remained competitive in spite of their troubles because of the efforts of their bullpen, whose 3.19 ERA leads the majors, nearly half a run better than the Yankees. Starting pitching has been maddeningly unpredictable for both teams, and only Curt Schilling (8-3, 3.03) and Pedro Martinez (7-3, 3.77) have provided any front-line stability for Boston. Still, the starters’ collective ERA (4.34) is still superior to the Bombers’ (4.72), who have problems of their own with a pair of starters going down with injuries in the last week. Kevin Brown’s back and Mike Mussina’s groin have put a damper lately on the festivities in the Bronx despite the team’s stunning rampage. If there’s one place that New York has little depth, it’s in its starting pitching, and Jose Contreras, Jon Lieber, and Javier Vazquez can’t be expected to take the hill every third day instead of every fifth. When New York gets five quality innings out of its starters, it can usually count on Paul Quantrill, Tom Gordon, and Mariano Rivera to make the last four innings of every game a foregone conclusion, but if Brown and Moose miss any significant time, then the Yanks’ offense may not have enough in its arsenal to rally back from nightly six-run deficits. Yet Yankee fans can always take solace in the fact that Lenny DiNardo (3.92), Mark Malaska (4.70), and Anastacio Martinez (6.75) are still out in the Boston bullpen as potential pyromaniacs, while Sox fans can only hope that the likes of Alan Embree, Mike Timlin, and Williamson are all that’s needed to spell relief. The Yankees’ long-term pitching stability depends on the ability of Brown and Mussina to return within a reasonable amount of time, while the Sox’ situation will likely right itself unless Schilling’s ankle injury requires surgery or a lengthy visit to the disabled list.

Hitting. The Red Sox’ team batting average of .269 — good for eighth in the league and 15th in the majors — is nearly 30 points below last year’s bashers’, but still nothing to sniff at. Yet that’s still better than the Yankees, who despite the addition of such former All-Stars as A-Rod and Gary Sheffield are still hitting only .264 (10th AL, 18th MLB). The Sons of Steinbrenner have certainly suffered from the sub-par years thus far posted by the likes of Derek Jeter (.247), Jason Giambi (.250), and Enrique Wilson (.209), but in fact only two Yankee regulars are batting over .288, and that’s a bit disconcerting to manager Joe Torre, who expected offense to be the least of his worries this season. A-Rod has managed quite nicely in his new stint at third base (.305, 14 HRs, and 36 RBIs after a slow start), and the fact that the team has secured 40 wins and is on such a hot streak indicates that the Yankees’ success is based not so much on cumulative numbers as on clutch hitting. Among positional starters, only Giambi has spent any time on the DL, while the Sox are only now welcoming back Nomar Garciaparra and Trot Nixon, two players who both hit over .300 for the 2003 squad. New York might miss first baseman Travis Lee (out for the season), but Boston’s offensive voids have been much more significant, with Ellis Burks and last year’s AL batting champ Bill Mueller joining Nomar, Trot, and the three pitchers on the DL for a big chunk of the season. With Garciaparra having four games under his belt and Nixon reportedly joining the team at Coors Field this week, Boston regains a couple of potent weapons for the remaining 100 contests (although both injuries could be aggravated at any time and result in a long-term shutdown). Other than Manny Ramirez, no one on the Sox’ roster is hitting over .300, but the Boston brass has got to be happy with the production provided by fill-ins Mark Bellhorn (.394 OBP) and Kevin Youkilis (.372 OBP, .272 BA), along with the sparkling defense and better-than-expected offense (.264) provided by Pokey Reese. Provided that the returnees can supply the numbers expected of them, the Boston line-up becomes that much more dangerous and sends up little in the way of weak links for opposing pitchers.

Intangibles. So if Boston has superior rankings in both pitching and hitting, why is it in second place and struggling to keep within striking distance of the so-called Evildoers? A couple of things. First of all, the Yankees are slowly melding into the team everyone worried that they’d become: an all-star team capable of winning anytime, anyhow. Sunday’s finale with the Padres was a prime example: after being shut down by former teammate David Wells and trailing 2-0 heading into the bottom of the ninth, the Yanks struck for back-to-back two-out home runs by Hideo Matsui and Sheffield to tie things up. In the 12th, the Pods seemingly sealed the deal with three runs off somebody named Bret Prinz, only to have the Pinstripers storm back for four in the bottom of the inning off former Soxer Rod Beck to steal a 6-5 win. The victory improved NY’s record to 13-6 in one-run games — the Yanks’ eighth straight victory in one-run decisions — while Boston’s record in one-runners is only 5-6. New York has also shown that after its 8-11 start it has regained its focus, going 32-10 while also posting a sparkling 16-8 record versus the AL West teams and winning 17 of 20 against left-handed starters. Boston, meanwhile, is 4-7 versus the West and just 7-6 against the Indians and Royals in the AL Central — with tilts against the White Sox and Twins still on the schedule.

A lot of hard-to-please Boston fans feel that the team still should have done better than it has, even though the absences of those key members of the squad are supremely noteworthy. Luckily for the Sox, the pitching staff and bullpen kept the team afloat while the offense was fielding the likes of Cesar Crespo, Dave McCarty, Gabe Kapler, and Brian Daubach. Now, with the starting pitching in a bit of disarray, there is confidence that the offense will explode and take the team to the heights it did a season ago when the hitting stats surpassed those of even the ’27 Yankees.

Boston will need to win and win and win in the upcoming weeks if it is to keep pace with the Yanks, whose schedule is significantly easier than the Sox’ upcoming ledger. Yet a year ago, unencumbered by injury, the Sox were 38-28 and half a game back; a year later, the team is 12 games over .500 after enduring a crushing slew of injuries and inconsistencies.

The Red Sox have to this point taken six of seven from the Yankees, but circumstances back then were completely different, and the rivals will not resume acquaintance until June 29 at the Stadium. Back in April we predicted that "What the AL East will come down to, frankly, is injuries and chemistry," and I see no reason to deviate from that prognostication now.

The hot 100 begins counting down now, with the identity at number-one still a mystery, yet certainly not a one-hit wonder.

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