Are the Boston Red Sox filling out their roster or casting a Celebrity Rehab spin-off focused on sports injuries?
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It could be that they’re just being smart. Those four players are each signed to incentive-laden one-year contracts that will cost the Red Sox a base total of $12.2 million, or $4.25 million less than the Yankees will pay the injury-prone A.J. Burnett in the first year of his five-year contract (or, to turn the tables on Boston, just $200,000 more than they’ll pay the rapidly-aging Mike Lowell in the second year of his three-year contract).

Read the rest of my take on the Sox recent spate of roster moves (as well as the Trevor Hoffman-to-Milwaukee deal) on SI.com.

The Yankees can hand the AL East to the Rays by beating the Red Sox at Fenway tonight, and Joe Girardi has all of his starters in the lineup behind Alfredo Aceves to get the job done. As the Wild Card, the Red Sox would draw the Angels in the ALDS. Boston went 1-8 against the Halos this season.

Aceves has posted a 1.42 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP in his three previous major league starts, all Yankee wins, and pitched at least six full innings in each without once reaching 90 pitches. Given that, he could get away with a stinker tonight and still enter spring training in the mix for the 2009 rotation. After facing Boston tonight, he’ll have faced three contenders in his four starts (also the Angels and White Sox). If he has another good outing, he might just go from being “in the mix” to being penciled in.

The Sox are slowly getting back up to health for the postseason. Mike Lowell, J.D. Drew, Sean Casey, Josh Beckett, and David Aardsma have all come off the DL in recent weeks, though Lowell and Drew are both still nursing their injuries (a torn hip labrum that will require offseason surgery and a stiff lower back, respectively). They’ll continue to be careful with their players, particularly given the rain that’s expected on the east coast this weekend, but will likely also want to get Lowell and Drew enough swings to feel comfortable heading in to the ALDS. Indeed, Lowell will DH tonight (with David Ortiz playing first base in presumptuous preparation for the World Series), while Drew continues to rest.

Speaking of that rain, there’s a chance it could wash out Mike Mussina’s opportunity to try for his 20th win of the season on Sunday, as there would be no need to play that game if the Rays clinch the division tonight or tomorrow. That said, the rain is expected to taper off come Sunday, and the Red Sox have rescheduled the retiring of Johnny Pesky’s number (6) until Sunday based on that forecast. Even if tonight or tomorrow’s game gets rained out and thus outright canceled, Moose will still go on Sunday, though given his history of near misses (including a memorable one in Fenway in 2001), one could imagine any number of Sunday scenarios that would bring Mussina thisclose to number 20 but leave him stuck at 19 for the third time in his career.

Oh, and if this series feels weird, it’s because the last time the Yankees faced a playoff-bound Red Sox team after being eliminated from the postseason themselves was September 21 to 23, 1990. The last time the Yankees faced a playoff-bound Red Sox team at Fenway Park after being eliminated from the postseason themselves was October 2 to 5, 1986.

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