As we hit the dog days of summer, baseball enters the home stretch for playoff pushes. And no team has made a bigger push than the Boston Red Sox. Given up for dead, fired their coach, but now they are storming up the American League East standings and look poised for a playoff run. No player has been more in the center of it than Ceddanne Rafaela. The centerfielder at the top of the lineup has been a spark plug since the All-Star Break and especially this week. Rafaela torched the Los Angeles Dodgers and Athletics for a Ted Williams like .419 average while clubbing 5 HR, 2 2B, 11 RBI and scoring 7 times for the week. The Red Sox went 6-1. Since the All-Star break, the Sox have gone 14-3 sweeping the Tampa Bay Rays (best team in the AL), Los Angeles Dodgers (best team in the NL), and, just before the break, swept the Chicago White Sox (first in AL Central) and New York Yankees (second best AL team). The native of Curacao is mimicking his best recent Hall of Fame inductee and countryman Andruw Jones in his star play, and is the Longhorndave Sportsman of the Week!
