Red Sox and Yankees meet this weekend with very little to play for

BOSTON -- It's going from bad to worse for the Red Sox, who just dropped two of three to the Washington Nationals to fall further back in the Wild Card hunt. But hey, at least they aren't the New York Yankees.

The Red Sox are not very good, but the Yankees are bad. Real bad. They are 60-61, sitting below .500 this late in the season for the first time since 1995.

While the Red Sox may be circling the bowl, the Yankees have already gone down the drain. Losers of five straight and eight of their last 10, New York hasn't won a series in a month. The Yankees have won just one series -- a sweep of the Royals -- since the All-Star break. (The Red Sox have won five series since the break.)

Now these two not-so-great AL East foes will do battle over the next three days in one of the more unexciting clashes in recent memory. Usually when these two teams meet this late in the season, at least one of them is on their way to the postseason. At the moment, neither is involved in the American League's playoff picture.

At 63-58 with 31 games left, the Red Sox have a 9.8 percent chance at making the postseason at the moment. The Yankees have just a 2.4 percent chance at October baseball.

But while neither team has been all that exciting for much of the season, things do get a bit entertaining when they match up. The Sox have outscored the Yankees, 32-15, this season, but most of that lopsidedness came from a 15-5 win in Boston. Four of the six meetings so far have been decided by three runs or fewer, including a pair of one-run Red Sox wins in New York.

This is a series the Red Sox cannot afford to let slip away if they want to keep treading water, especially after losing two of three to the Nationals to begin their 10-game road trip. After they're done with the Yankees, the Red Sox have four against the Astros in Houston before returning home for three against the L.A. Dodgers and three more against the Astros. The schedule is only getting tougher from here, so the Red Sox cannot afford to lose any more games against bad teams -- like the Yankees.

Boston did take two of three in New York in June, and then swept a three-game set against the Yankees at Fenway Park a few weeks later. So they've had their number this season. But if they want to keep their season afloat, they need to do everything they can to sink the Yankees this weekend.

If not, the Red Sox will be spending the rest of the season trying to avoid last place in the AL East instead of making a desperate push for the playoffs.