10 Reasons why we been doing a rope-a-dope on the Redsocks

In his 1974 victory over George Foreman, the Rumble in the Jumble, Muhammed Ali used the famous "rope-a-dope" strategy: Let the other guy beat the shit out of you for the first three rounds, then attack when he can't lift his arms.

This year, Boston has kicked us around like a soccer ball -- and yet, they only lead us by 1.5 games. They surely remember 2009, when they murdered us in the first-half, then fell apart.

Here are 10 reasons why they have to be more scared of us than we are of them.

1. Big Papi hitting .320. Come September, the only 300 he'll see is on a bathroom scale.

2. They're banged up. (So are we.) Pedroia's knee. Youk's whole ugly body. Buckholtz's back. Lowrie's shoulder. Gonzalez? I hereby put an injury juju move on you.

3. They're ancient. Scutero at shortstop is practically as old as Jeter.

3. Papelbon. Lights out in April. Not anymore. Too much emotion. He hurts his face.

4. We have more depth at Triple A. Montero is hitting. Hughes is coming back. We don't need to make a bad deadline trade. We can bring them up.

5. Carl Crawford still hasn't hit in Boston. Now he's hurt. Smelling a lost year.

6. Lackey. Never been the same in Boston. Maybe he never will be.

7. Either Jacoby Ellsbury is MLB's greatest player, he's going to hit a slump.

8. They have more holes (catching, shortstop, fifth starter) than we do.

9. Cano hasn't yet enjoyed his AL Player of the Month stretch.

10. In their heart, they know we're coming. They can't hit any harder, and we're still standing.