The Boston Red Sox have disintegrated before our very eyes. The team that not long ago I considered the best in the American League has become a shell of its former self.

Less than two months ago the Red Sox had a five-game division lead and had won all eight games they had played against the Yankees. But then the Yankees huffed and they puffed and they blew Boston’s house down.

The Red Sox sat atop the A.L. East wall, but then they suffered a very great fall, and all Theo’s magic and all Theo’s men couldn’t put the Red Sox together again.

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The New York Mets hold a distinction – call it a record, if you’d like, but we have become too record crazy – that they would be happy to relinquish to the Los Angeles Dodgers this season. As of the start of the week, the Dodgers were 34 days away from the Mets’ mark, and they had 49 days left in which to surpass it.

In 2007 the Mets spent 159 days in first place and, as most of you know, did not finish in first place. No team has ever been in first for so long without finishing the season in first. The Dodgers, as of the start of the week, have been atop the National League West for 125 days.

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Are the Toronto Blue Jays waiting for the Baltimore Orioles to pass them before they acknowledge they have a serious problem?

When J.P. Ricciardi interviewed for the Blue Jays’ general manager’s job in 2001, he told Paul Godfrey, the chief executive, that he could do a better job for less, not less money in his paycheck but less money on the player payroll.

Nearly eight years later, the Blue Jays are in position to achieve their fourth losing season under Ricciardi and second successive fourth-place finish in the American League East.

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