Whenever I watch important sports events with my New England Sports Fan Friend, he’ll pace around anxiously before the game, then sit down and pronounce: “It’s time to focus.”

The implication, of course, is that by focusing we can help determine the outcome of the game. By this logic, we can take partial credit for the Celtics’ NBA championship, as well as a couple of Super Bowl and World Series victories, but we can also be blamed for the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl loss to the New York Giants. I tend to think the dismal performance of the team’s offensive line and Tom Brady’s injury had more to do with that, but why jinx things by not focusing? And so focus I do.

I haven’t paid as much attention to baseball this year as I have in the past, but with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays still in first place in the American League East and an ever-tightening wild card race, I can see that it’s time to focus. Clearly, the Boston Red Sox need some help. For every good thing that’s happened (pitcher Jon Lester’s emergence as a true ace, the prolific hitting of Dustin Pedroia), there’s been something bad (the mysterious implosion of Clay Buchholz, Josh Beckett’s injury), and so it’s tough to know what to make of this team, which has promise but also serious flaws.

I touched base the New England Sports Fan Friend earlier this week. We’ve both been preoccupied of late, and although we corresponded during the Manny Ramirez saga (we were sad to see him go, but agreed it was the right move, though perhaps our lack of focus during this period is evidenced by the fact that I never got around to writing a blog titled “Manny Ramirez is Just Not Very Smart”), we haven’t watched a single baseball game together this year.

“How do you think the Sox look?” I asked.

“Eh,” the New England Sports Fan Friend said. “I think the Angels look pretty good. I’m not sure they can beat the Angels.”

“This season has a very 2005 feeling, doesn’t it?” I said.

We all remember 2005 — the year the Boston Red Sox made the playoffs, only to be swept by the Chicago White Sox in the first round. The Chicago White Sox were very good that year, and eventually went on to win the World Series. The Boston Red Sox, on the other hand, saw their reign as World Series champions come to an end. Perhaps we were so satisfied by winning in 2004 that we lost our focus. That is, until last year, when we won the thing again.

I don’t like to make predictions about anything in August. In general, it’s just a bad idea. But it’s clear that it’s time to focus, and, no, I can’t believe that Tampa Bay is still in first place, either. So I don’t know what will happen. Talk to me again in September, when it stops being a time to focus and becomes a time to panic.