Here are a couple of deep Red Sox thoughts on the eve of a big three-game series between the Olde Towne and a fading Tampa Bay Rays team that really lost some of their momentum when Scott Kazmir – crappy 5 plus ERA or not – was sold off to the Angels.
With the Rays 5 games back in the AL East entering Tuesday night, anything less than a Tampa sweep puts the Little Tampa Train that Could out of its misery – and does it in the House That Ryan Rupe Built, no less.

1. The Red Sox magic number is at 29 games after the Rangers lost again on Monday night. It appears that the Sox have found enough patches to get push them into the postseason barring a September collapse, and could do some real damage with the real Josh Beckett and an ascending Jon Lester at the top of the rotation along with a bullpen quartet of Daniel Bard, Hideki Okajima, Billy Wagner and Jonathan Papelbon available just about every night given the typical staggered schedule during the playoffs. They’ve shown enough offense with everybody now healthy and accounted for.

This Sox team is built for the playoffs – much more so than the regular season – and it could set up an interesting little run during the month of October if things break correctly, and Clay Buchholz can step up as Boston's No. 3 starter.

2. Most people just assume that the Sox will roll over the Angels in a potential Division Series just as they did in 2004, 2007 and again last season. There's a line of reasons why Boston should roll over the Angels: The Halos don’t have the starters. They have a mental block against Boston. John Lackey wakes up in a cold sweat when he dreams about Fenway. Brian Fuentes is a so-so closer. Yada, yada, yada.

The go-go Angels are second in Major League Baseball with 130 stolen bases this season, and the Red Sox are ill-equipped to deal with an athletic, aggressive baseball team like the Angels that also enough offensive firepower.

The Sox have nabbed a Major League-worst 14 percent of potential base stealers this season and have nailed only 20 total in 142 stolen base attempts this summer. Some of that is obviously dropped at the feet of Brad Penny, who simply didn’t do anything to slow the running game down, but the catchers are also having trouble.

Jason Varitek has thrown out 15 of 107 base stealers for a 14 percent success rate, and Victor Martinez has also thrown out only 7 of 50 base stealers this season. V-Mart has also already racked up three throwing errors attempting to control the running game in only 16 games in Boston -- and clearly isn’t any better than Varitek.

That’s what you call a potentially bad matchup in a series that many would mistakenly considered to be a cakewalk for the Red Sox.

3. Billy Wagner looked devastating in his Sunday debut with the Red Sox, and it had nothing to do with the afternoon shadows at Fenway. It appeared like hitters were having trouble recognizing the slider out of Wagner’s left hand, and the hard-throwing southpaw got a series of stilted check swings on his offerings.
Varitek brushed aside any thought about the shadows, and instead said it was all about the 38-year-old’s nastiness. He was consistently pumping up 95-mph fastballs along with an 84-mph darting slider, and the middle of the Blue Jays lineup could barely touch him.

“Because Wagner isn’t a vertically imposing guy and because of where he lines up on the rubber, he doesn’t have that effect in the shadows that some left-handers do at Fenway. I got a really good look at everything that came out of his hand, and so did the hitters,” said Varitek. “That was all about stuff. That wasn’t about shadows.”