It’s deja vu all over again!” That’s one of Yogi Berra’s famous “Yogi-isms” first uttered in ref­er­ence to watch­ing Mickey Man­tle and Roger Maris hit back-to-back home runs so fre­quently. 1 
1 Test­ing a side­note on this post. Boston fans might be in for their own dose of deja vu this week­end as the wilt­ing Red Sox head into the Bronx for a piv­otal series against the Yankees.

Three years ago this month, the Yan­kees trav­elled to Boston for a five-game series which included a makeup game for a pre­vi­ous rain out.  The Red Sox had jumped out to a 53–33 record at the All Star break in 2006 mark­ing their best first half record in Terry Francona’s tenure pro­vid­ing a three game cush­ion over the Yan­kees. How­ever, the Red Sox stum­bled to a 16–17 record over the first six weeks of the sec­ond half while the Yan­kees surged to a 20–12 record and entered the series with a 1.5 game lead.

The series’ length ampli­fied its impor­tance but with  home field advan­tage on their side, Boston fans were opti­mistic their team, at worst, would win the series 3–2 and emerge just a half game back in the divi­sion.  Real­is­ti­cally, this might have been wish­ful think­ing as Boston entered the series entirely flat.  The Sox had won just three of the ten series they had played in the sec­ond half.

Fast for­ward three years and the Red Sox, com­ing off a first half per­for­mance that spot­ted them a 3 game lead over the Yan­kees at the All Star break, have stum­bled to an 8–10 record thus fan in the sec­ond half.  The Yan­kees, con­versely, have sprinted to a 14–5 sec­ond half record to erase the three game divi­sion deficit they faced at the break and they cur­rently hold a 2.5 game lead in the AL East.  Sound famil­iar? 2 
2 Test­ing a sec­ond and slightly longer side­note on this post. Real­is­ti­cally, this might have been wish­ful think­ing as Boston entered the series entirely flat.  The Sox had won just three of the ten series they had played in the sec­ond half.

As we all know, the Yan­kees blud­geoned the Red Sox in that five-game series by a com­bined score of 49–26 effec­tively crip­pling Boston’s psy­che and their chances at win­ning the divi­sion.  Not only did Boston go into a free fall after the drub­bing by los­ing 12 of their next 16 games, they fin­ished third in the divi­sion behind the Blue Jays.  Although it won’t be the Blue Jays, there’s a very real chance that if Boston is ham­mered by the Yan­kees this week­end, they will again fin­ish third in the divi­sion as the Rays have served notice that they’re mak­ing another run.

The Red Sox pathetic and heart­less dis­play in Tampa Bay should serve notice to Sox fans that if the team lays an egg in New York this week­end, the sea­son is most likely over.  That’s a strong state­ment with another six weeks of base­ball remain­ing but what player on this team has dis­played a fight­ing spirit?  Do you really want to peg a late sea­son push on the health of Dice-K and Tim Wakefield’s return?  The John Smoltz expi­ra­ment will likely be shut­down if he doesn’t turn things around in his next cou­ple of starts.  Jason Bay looks like he’ll be for­tu­nate to reach half of his pro­duc­tion from the first half.  Mike Low­ell has served the Sox well but he’s aging in dog years and essen­tially a crip­ple who now forces Fran­cona to choose between plac­ing a com­pe­tent bat or  glove, but not both, in the lineup at third base.  Short­stop is a black hole (inter­est­ing aside–Nick Green scored the win­ning run for the Yan­kees in the final game of the five game mas­sacre).  J.D. Drew…enough said.

Josh Beck­ett, Jon Lester, Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youk­ilis are the only play­ers who seem vis­i­bly upset about los­ing.  That’s not to say the oth­ers don’t care but I’m just left won­der­ing if Theo has gone a lit­tle too far in purg­ing the Red Sox of the resilient per­son­al­i­ties that pop­u­lated the club­house dur­ing the “idiot” years.  Wouldn’t shots of Jack Daniels before games help this group?  They could use “Cow­boy Up” rally cry.  Would this team ever muster the pride to fight back in game 4 of an ALCS they were los­ing 3–0?

It may be that a series with their not-so-bitter-anymore rivals is just what the Sox need to regain their non-existent pulse.  But bar­ring the unfore­seen, I’m brac­ing myself for deja vu all over again.