The Red Sox and the AL East

Things don't look good for the Red Sox winning the AL East but there is still some hope. New York currently holds a 7.5 game lead in the AL East but here are the factors to consider:

- The Yankees have 44 games remaining with exactly half at home and half on the road. The Red Sox meanwhile have 45 games remaining with 5 more games at Fenway left than games away from the friendly confines.

- There are also 6 head to head games remaining between the two teams.

- The Red Sox finish up the season with 14 of their last 17 games against the Orioles, Royals, Blue Jays and Indians with the other 3 games against the Yankees.

If the Yankees went .500 for the rest of the season (22-22), the Red Sox would have to go 30-15 to catch up. That's a .667 winning percentage while so far this season they have managed to only win .564 percent of their games. So basically the Red Sox will have to step up and at least win every remaining series to have a shot. Most likely they will have to have something like a 10-game winning streak thrown in there because hoping the Yankees play .500 ball the rest of the way probably isn't realistic.

So there isn't much hope but there is some left.

[Edit - thanks to SpinMan for fixing my math]