I am about to ensure 2012 World Series victory for the Red Sox by declaring that the team will win it all.  I am the sort of pundit who is always wrong; if I were to declare the world to be round, some damned fool in a sailboat off the coast of Malaysia would promptly fall off the edge and into empty space just to prove me wrong.

Here is the analysis.  Last night our “ace” pitcher gave up four runs in less than 7 innings which was, remarkably, one of his better starts.  A series of three relief pitchers, two of whom I (a season ticket holder) had never heard of until last week, each gave up one run.  Against those six runs the Red Sox managed three, on a home run by the kid replacement for Kevin Youkalis (whom we never should have traded) whose homer, in turn, was set up by a fielding error by the Rangers and thus almost doesn’t even count.

In other developments, Sox management took enough time away from its soccer interests to assure the public that it was not blaming manager Bobby Valentine, the very fellow they will fire in the off-season no matter what happens including my predicted World Series triumph, just because they can.  Big Papi, one of only three big league players on this year’s roster, remains sidelined with an achilles problem and is at the stage of taking shots to control the pain which, I can tell you from personal experience, is an inadequate temporary palliative that does not address the basic issue; my achilles sojourn with shots deep into my heel resulted in half a year on a cane as an alternative to surgery and half a year on a cane — but then again Big Papi is a professional athlete and hopefully can be cured while I was relegated to a lawyerly limp.  And finally the Sox have carefully explained why they did so little at the trading deadline: the team is so darned good as it is that tinkering with it was a mistake.

All this plays on the backdrop of the Yankees losing 7 of their last 10, the entire American League drifting together with no team playing consistently good baseball (no one approaching .600), and yet the Sox are this morning only the ninth best team out of the 14 in the AL.  That means there are eight teams ahead of us, three will win divisions and make the playoffs automatically, and so we need to overtake four of the five other teams ahead of us to get the wild card slot that will allow us to slip into contention and thus win the World Series, as I have promised (see paragraph #1 above).

Did I mention our team is below .500, having lost more games than we have won?  (That’s how it works, by the way; when you lose more than you win, you are below .500!)

SO, per Sox management we have them right where we want them.  I predict, along with John Henry and Ben Cherrington, that the Sox will take the Series this year; I say 6 games.  I have already looked onto MLB’s website, put the dates on my calendar, and made sure I do not schedule anything that might conflict with those dates and any possible rain (or snow) postponements.

I am offering World Series Seats to you readers for all home games in the playoffs, American League championship series, and the World Series at a flat $1000 per seat per game, first come first served.  Reservations are non-refundable and must be accompanied by bank checks for the seats committed.  You really don’t want to miss this Series; it will blow away 2004 and 2007 for drama, and allow you also to say good-bye to half the team that will join Valentine in the off-season by trying on different uniforms for their new employers.