Playoffs?

Why the Sox will thrive in the playoffs:

- They've done a very good job resting regulars over the last couple of weeks and still managed to hold on to win the division.

- Curt Schilling has managed to become very effective even with his diminished velocity.

- Jacoby Ellsbury. Things happen when he's on the field.

- JD Drew appears to finally have started playing like he's capable of.

- Manny's healthy now.

- Same with Okajima. The rest helped (and with Dice-K, too).

Why there's no World Series in our future for 2007:

- Eric Gagné.

- Not enough bullpen (even with a healthier Okajima).

- Too much of a battle down the stretch - what have they got left?

- Yes, he's played spectacular defense. But offensively Coco Crisp's been a black hole for much of the season. Awesome trade bait, though.

- Kevin Youkilis is exhausted.

- Same with Varitek.

The actual results? We'll see. At least they didn't pull a Mets (I was really worried about that until a week ago).

Meanwhile, we spent the weekend in New Jersey - Jane's dad was given a nice honor by a local business group to recognize all he'd done for the town in his career. Cool, except the catch was we had horrible traffic en route, stayed at the hotel, and were back on the road by 11AM Sunday. So we really didn't get to spend any quality time, which David would have really enjoyed. He did get to swim a lot with his cousin in the afternoon Saturday, which was good. I hung out in the pool with the two of them for an hour or so and then left the supervising to others.

He had a blast, but finally he slurped down enough water that he got out and barfed on the patio (a lovely mix of pool water and pizza - bleh). He was fine after, though. And he was pretty good for the most part. A couple of moments here and there, but he was also pretty tired from all the travel and the weird hours we were sleeping due to it. No harm.

We got home last night at 6:15 (after stopping for 45 minutes in CT so we could have lunch and I could fix my mom's printer) - I was out right after to go fix a server back in Beverly. Got it done, though.