01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, September 29, 2005

BOSTON -- Never mind the calendar. It may look like the last week in September, but it's actually the first week in October.

In a baseball sense, anyway.

"This is the playoffs right now," maintained Johnny Damon last night. "It's here already, before October comes. It's a whirlwind every day. It's a circus."

And in case you tuned it late, the Red Sox are trailing.

Officially, of course, the postseason doesn't begin until next week. But with four teams in the American League battling for just three playoff spots, the timetable has been moved up.

If you don't win now, you don't get to play in the real playoffs.

The Sox' 7-2 setback to the Toronto Blue Jays, coupled with the New York Yankees' 2-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles, dropped the Sox a game in back of the Yankees with just four games to play.

If the same daily double comes up

tonight -- a Yankee win and a Red Sox loss -- the Red Sox will need to sweep the Yankees over the weekend to win the division title outright.

Three straight wins against the Yanks isn't exactly, ahem, unprecedented. But it would certainly represent a challenge. Conversely, a Red Sox win and a Yankee loss sets up a best-of-three set beginning tomorrow.

Like some wildly unpredictable stock, the Red Sox value changes by the hour. Tuesday afternoon, they were up after winning the first game of their day-nighter. Then, despite a loss in the second game, they lost no ground since the Yankees also lost Tuesday night.

But the reversal of fortune was significant last night. In a matter of hours, the Red Sox went from even to a full game behind.

"Every win and every loss is important," said Damon. "We missed an opportunity to get a game up on Cleveland (which lost to Tampa Bay for the second straight night) while New York takes advantage. We've got some work to do."

The Indians and the wild card represent another path to the postseason, the same one the Sox have taken on their last four trips to the postseason: 1998, 1999, 2003 and last year.

Cleveland and the Sox are now tied for the wild card. For the Indians, the wild card is quickly becoming the only entry to the postseason. With Chicago's loss last night, the Tribe now trail A.L. Central-leading Chicago by three games with four to go. The Indians host Chicago for the final three games this season, but unless the Indians pick up a game tonight, that last series won't mean much.

That, in turn, could hurt the Red Sox. If the White Sox go into the weekend having already clinched the Central or in need of just one more win to secure the division, how hard will they play against a still-desperate Indians team?

All of which illustrates how vital it is for the Red Sox to take care of their own business so they don't have to rely on any outside help. It's this simple really: if the Red Sox win their four remaining games, there's no way they can be kept out of the post-season. Anything less and they're taking their chances.

Now might be a good time for the Red Sox to draw upon their experience of a year ago, when, after falling behind 0-3 to the Yankees in the ALCS, they staged a historic comeback and kept rolling right through the Cardinals in the World Series.

"That (experience) helps out a lot," said Damon. "We play with a lot of confidence. We've been there. We've been behind in the past. With a veteran club, no one is panicking."

That might change if the Sox drop another game back in the standings, leaving them no margin for error.

It's their choice: they can make it easy for themselves, or make it difficult.

"We know what we have to do," insisted Damon. "We feel like we're going to win every day. We just need do it."

If they know what's good for them, starting tonight.