It was a very strange night a Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. The Red Sox held a 3-0 lead against the Yankees when they found out they won the AL East, as the Orioles beat the Blue Jays. Boston brought on Craig Kimbrel to finish off the Yankees in the ninth, but Kimbrel could not get an out. After the third batter of the inning reached to load the bases, the infielders, led by Dustin Pedroia, went to the mound for a discussion. You could tell Pedroia was upset. They wanted to get the game over and celebrate. Kimbrel walked the next batter, bringing on Joe Kelly. Kelly got the next two batters without allowing a run, then gave up a magnificent home run to Mark Teixeira, and the Yankees won the game. I got the feeling the Red Sox wanted to rub the Yankees nose in the clinching, but they lost in such dramatic fashion they could not do that.

A division win is a division win, however, and the Red Sox played great down the stretch to go worst to first again. The offense was never in doubt, as Boston leads the AL in runs per game by 0.7 runs. They are in a class by themselves. If you look at the composite lineup, the only weak slot is the eighth hitter, exactly where the weak spot should be. This lineup came within 0.05 runs of optimum, and it’s almost impossible to create a bad lineup here.

The pitching was a problem however, bottoming out in June with a 4.88 ERA as Boston went 10-16 that month. They steadily improved since then, however, posting a 4.33 mark in July, 3.69 in August, and 2.96 so far in September. That led them to an 18-7 record this month, and the AL East title.

Congratulations to the Red Sox on an impressive win! They fixed their pitching problems and stopped wasting the offense. If the pitching holds up, like the shows of the Knights of the Round Table, they will be formidable in the post season.