​Tough Red Sox Schedule This Week Not Exactly a Room-Service Hop

Excuses! Get your red-hot excuses for the Red Sox falling behind in the AL playoff picture!

Boston hasn't made any excuses yet, but there will be an opportunity this week because of a quirk in their schedule that has the Red Sox playing in four different ballparks in five days, and all against playoff contenders. The Red Sox come into Monday with a 1.5-game lead for the second AL wild card spot, but will they last the week as a playoff team? Here is what their week looks like:

Sunday: A 16-2 victory against the Diamondbacks at Fenway Park, after Mookie Betts hits three home runs and drives in eight. So far so good—but now the team is packs their bags.

Monday: At Cleveland's Progressive Field for a 1:10 PM first pitch against the Indians to make up an April 7th rainout. So far, rain, which is expected, has not pushed back the game, but regardless of when it is played, the Indians might have the best team in the American League.

Tuesday, Wednesday: At Baltimore for a pair of 7:05 PM first pitches against the Orioles. Camden Yards is an established deathtrap for the Red Sox, as anyone who knows the name of Robert Andino also knows.

Thursday: At Detroit for a 1:10 PM four-game series opener against the Tigers, who are 33-21 at Comerica Park. Quick turnaround after a night game at Camden Yards.

Why do the Tigers start midweek series with day games? It's not just to mess with the Red Sox, but it helps.

Detroit historically plays day games on Thursdays, whether it's the start or end of a series, and they presumably declined Boston's request to push back the start time in keeping with tradition. There is also a Lions preseason game across the street Thursday night, which would present a logistical problem. That didn't stop some from conspiracy theorizing that the Tigers are out to get ex-GM Dave Dombrowski, whom the Tigers fired during the season last year. Here's the Boston Herald's Michael Silverman:

Is this some kind of a less-than-fond farewell card from the Tigers? Al Avila, bumped up to GM after serving as Dombrowski's assistant, said yesterday that he doesn't set game times. A request to speak with another Tigers executive yesterday went unanswered.

Maybe this has nothing to do with Dombrowski.

But it still feels like a bush-league move. And if you think the Tigers jimmied the schedule to gain an edge, you can read the mind of Dombrowski.

"They traditionally have played Thursday afternoons during the season, although they don't always play (then) because if the roles were reversed, I'm sure they would have played a night game," Dombrowski said. "And I'm sure they did it in some ways because they realized we would come in as a tired club, that they did it from a competitive perspective."

Again, the Tigers fired Dombrowski—it's not like he spurned them for the Sox—and not changing an already scheduled game because of historical precedent is not quite "jimmying" the schedule.

Boston's trip continues with four more games at Tampa Bay's Tropicana Field. The Rays are not very good this season, and the Red Sox always draw a lot of their fans for games at St. Petersburg, but it's still got to make them wary. The Trop is an odd ballpark where weird, awful things can happen. It would be easy to make excuses…

Mm-hmm. Red Sox manager John Farrell, who probably thinks the video replay system is out to get his team, is not scheduling any alibis about the work week at this time:

"We've got an adjusted plan in place," Farrell told reporters. "The schedule has been there, maybe with the exception of the makeup day in Cleveland. That creates a quick turnaround, so we've adjusted some things with out own schedule to accommodate that change — the change in cities, the change in venues, the change in lineups. The most important thing is we take care of the things we can control. We're not fretting about the schedule. We've known since January this trip was coming, so we're looking forward to it."

Oh, I'll bet.