Though his team has been hovering around the mark all season, Bobby Valentine doesn't see the Red Sox as a .500 baseball team.

In fact, he thinks the Red Sox, who enter play Wednesday a game under .500 (55-56), are bound for October even though they're currently nine games behind the Yankees in the AL East and 4½ games out of the second wild-card spot, behind four teams (a fifth if you count the wild-card leader).

"I think we're a playoff team and I think we're going to be there before the season is over," Valentine said Wednesday morning in an interview on Boston sports radio station WEEI.

When it was suggested by a host that the Red Sox would probably need to get to around 89 wins to clinch the second wild-card spot -- which would mean a 34-17 record the rest of the way -- Valentine thought such a run sounded doable.

"Yeah, of course," Valentine said. "Of course, we can do better than that. I don't think that's so optimistic, I think it's realistic if we stay healthy. Right now we have some concerns in the bullpen. If that stabilizes I think there's big runs ahead."