The Red Sox have reached lame duck status

Alright, so the Boston Red Sox are in lame duck mode.

As of Tuesday afternoon, they only have six games left in their season. The worst they can finish the season is .500 (81-81). The best they can do is 87-75. That's because at this moment they are 81-75. They're an above-average team, but a disappointment for fans nonetheless.

The team has a series left against the Texas Rangers on the road and then one last home series -- against the Baltimore Orioles. For many, it is hard to get pumped up about that sort of thing. The team has not given people much reason to be optimistic lately and while they have a better team than the Orioles on paper, we've been seeing a bunch of random AAA relievers in games give up deep home runs, so it is hard to really say much on the positive side.

It would almost be better if the Red Sox lost out and got a higher draft pick at this point, but a lot of people would rather see them win 83-84 games instead -- and that's understandable. People like the whole playing for pride thing, after all.

Not much will be remembered about this season in the future, if I had to guess. The team hit a lot of home runs, but it was just an example of how difficult it is to repeat the same success a team enjoyed one year prior despite having a virtually identical roster.

The roster will look a fair amount different next year, assuming they want to contend in a tough AL East division. What moves the team will end up making remain unclear, but at least that should be an interesting topic of conversation that we can look at around a later date in time. Now is not that time.