Can the Red Sox Win the AL East This Season?

The Boston Red Sox find themselves in a very good position to claim their 1st AL Eastern Division title since 1995. Since that time, the team has been perhaps the best 2nd place team and has gone to the playoffs by route of the Wild Card. The city of Boston has a World Series Title in 2004. The question that comes to past as of late will be can The Red Sox win the AL East and maintain the lead they have leading into the 2nd half of the 2007 Baseball Season. The closest this team has had to winning the division was in 2005 when they tied with the same regular season record; due to the season series record between the Yankees and Red Sox, that however was given to the Yankees continuing their active streak of division championships. Winning the division is something Boston hasn't done in 11 years excluding this season and should they fail, it will be 12 years. To further illustrate that point, the Yankees more so have basically been the Kings of the AL East winning that division from 1998 up to last season and are in danger of not only failing to win the division but also not making the playoffs. The team has lost Curt Schilling for some a while but that has yet to slow this team down. Other players have stepped up to the plate and helped deliver giving them victories and maintaining 1st place.

This has been a trend and has more so continued over the years whenever Boston has lead going into the All Star Break. They would go ahead and lead looking like they would easily take the division but they apparently have choked and the Yankees sneak in and take it just like that. In a city that has seen them come so close and yet so far, this has been nothing new so there is no time to celebrate just that. Until the division has a huge lead over it like 15 games ahead or something to that effect, it is not possible to write a team out just like that. When it's September, only then will it be easy to say whether or not the Red Sox will win the division, get back in the playoffs, or will they be either a Wild Card team or a team that despite doing really well this season, just barley miss the playoffs.