Hello, first place. Good to see you.

I don't talk about the Red Sox nearly as often as I should. Nor do I have awesomely long posts anymore. Time for a change.

Allow me to talk about some reasons why this Red Sox team really does have the potential to win a World Series. I took a quick glance at the standings on the MLB homepage, and a few differences between the Sox and the Yankees popped up to me. The intangible records, those being games that go into extra innings, and 1-run games. The Red Sox are 3-2 in extras and 9-7 in 1-run games, while New York is 3-4 and 7-10, respectively. So that's a combined 12-9 record for Boston, which is 3.5 games better than the Yankees' record. After watching the series this week, the Red Sox have proved that they can dominate games, and pound a team away. But they have also shown that they can do what they need to to win close games. Remember that stretch where we went 13-2 in May? Seven of those wins were by 2 runs or fewer, including a 5-4 victory in the Bronx, a 1-0 win against the Tigers, and taking 2 out of 3 from the Indians, who had the best record in the AL at that point.

Funny I mention that whole best record thing, because the Red Sox have it now (are are only half a game behind Philadelphia and 1 game back of the Cardinals for the best record in baseball). And we all thought we were done after a 2-10 start. We've played .680 baseball (34-16) since then, which is insane. We just needed everyone to play together for a little while and start clicking on all cylinders. Case in point: Carl Crawford. Sure, Adrian Gonzalez has been this team's best player, but he's been consistently there in 2011. Crawford, as you very well may remember, batted an abysmal .155 in April with 5 extra-base hits (0 triples) and 6 RBI. His May? He batted .304 with 3 homers, 3 triples, and 15 RBI. April has traditionally been his worst month, anyway. The best news is that his best month is June, so I'm not worried at all (Sound familiar? @jonlester).

Alright, so we proved the Red Sox can win the AL East, but we already knew (and probably expected) they could entering this season. Then we end up with home-field in the ALDS, and we'll end up facing Cleveland or Texas, with an outside shot at Detroit. (Sorry Minnesota, but you're already too far behind for your annual second-half push to mean anything in the AL Central.) And none of those teams can match up with us. Cleveland got the better of us in April, but we've already said that April doesn't matter. The playoffs don't start in the month after April. They start in the month after September, which is when you would like to be playing your best baseball (see: Colorado Rockies, 2007).

But I digress. As I believe I have been this entire time. This wasn't even as long a post as I probably intended. In all reality, I probably just wanted to give myself an excuse to peruse MLB.com and Baseball-Reference, which is literally the greatest baseball site ever. In all seriousness though, we got this. Between pitching, hitting, and defense, we're going to be in every game, and at their best, our pitching/hitting/defense beats any other team's pitching/hitting/defense.

Get used to hearing Dirty Water, everyone. It's gonna be ringing throughout Boston until late October.