 |
| Boston Red Sox on final day of 2011 Major League Baseball season (ESPN/Getty Images). FAIR USE: these images were only used for educational purposes only. |
However, what largely gets ignored is that the Red Sox actually had lost the lead by mid September and if it was not for an 8 game winning streak towards the end, the Red Sox would have never pushed that 163rd game. In fact, Sox had an opportunity to come back, only for that to be dashed with Carl Yastrzemski's pop up that concluded the game.
The same thing could be mentioned here for the 2011 Boston Red Sox, for that the season was over well before it officially ended on Tampa Bay Ray's Evan Longoria's game winning home run against the New York Yankees a mere three minutes after Jonathan Papelbon blew a save at the worst time of his career against the last place Baltimore Orioles. The Red Sox are now two years removed from their last postseason appearance and four years removed from their last world title. The fallout has already begun with manager Terry Francona departing the Red Sox after 8 seasons, two world titles, five post season appearances, and the distinction of being the second winningest manager in the history of the franchise.
Chemistry problems and apparent selfishness riddled the clubhouse; and on top of that Francona had suggested that he had lost the clubhouse in meetings he held with Red Sox management on Friday. ESPN's Gordon Edes reported a troubling anomaly about this season -- that Francona called not one, not two, but three clubhouse meetings over issues, including a meeting Francona publicized in the press conference on Thursday that took place after a 14-0 win against the Toronto Blue Jays earlier in September. In previous seasons, Edes said, Francona would only call a meeting once a year.
Let's face it, their season concluded in April. However, with the run that the Red Sox went on throughout the summer, Red Sox fans (including myself) were led to believe otherwise. Yet, whether you believe it is the baseball gods or the simple idea of karma in baseball, successful seasons are not meant to be had for a team that loses 10 of their first 12 games; especially a team that has their hometown publication (the Boston Herald, in this instance) declare it to be the best team ever before it even took the field to play a game. A problem with the 2011 Red Sox is that they did not play like a team and that reality was crystal clear as the collapse intensified.
The Red Sox's collapse is the worst in major league history -- erasing the "Phold" of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies and easily eclipsing the Atlanta Braves collapse of this year, which only reached its conclusion about twenty minutes before Boston's did. In fact, the Braves only did a half-a-game worse. However, Boston's bloated payroll and their position as one of baseball's two most popular franchises, has the spotlight shined on Yawkey Way. From a statistical standpoint, Boston lost 20 of the 27 games that they played in September, the Red Sox only won once when they scored fewer than 9 runs, fell 5 out of 7 times to the playing-for-pride Orioles, and blew a 9 game lead in the American League Wildcard to the never-say-quit Tampa Bay Rays.
There were base-running mistakes (see, Marco Scutaro and David Ortiz), horrible starting pitching performances (Lackey and Wakefield were total nightmares), aces faltering (see Josh Beckett's last two starts of the season), cold bats, and defensive errors (the ball that Carl Crawford should have caught). They made managers look brilliant (Buck Showalter out managed Francona) and they made mediocre pitchers look like Justin Verlander (A.J. Burnett's start against Boston). Baseball pundits took note specifically with the disaster zone known as the Red Sox starting rotation. Boston used 7 starters over the course of September: Lackey, Wakefield, Beckett, Jon Lester, Erik Bedard, Andrew Miller, and Kyle Weiland. Combined, they went 4-13 with an ERA of 6.67, a WHIP of 1.69, and their average starts lasted five innings. The pitching staff overall struggled in September: their 5.84 ERA and 6 blown saves was the worst in baseball and only the Cleveland Indians had a higher WHIP.
The more bone chilling thing is that the Red Sox's playoff hopes depended on the team that surged past them in the standings in September -- the Yankees. However, to the chagrin of the Red Sox, the Yankees had nothing to play for in Tampa for they already won the AL East, already secured the best record in the American League, and all Joe Girardi had to focus on is setting up the rotation for the Division Series. The Red Sox needed to look within themselves if they were going to succeed this post season and did the complete opposite.
Keep in mind, that for four months this season, the Red Sox were the best had the best record in baseball (the best team in all of baseball still remains the Philadelphia Phillies), but the injury issues that the Sox had -- notably Kevin Youkilis and Clay Buchholz, neither of whom returned this season -- and their starting rotation issues served as Boston's Achillies' heel. Boston, always bailed out by their potent offense, could not get the runs when they needed them, even though the team was third in runs scored (146), fifth in batting average (.284), on base percentage (.342), and OPS (.804), and fourth in slugging (.462).
Philosophically, it can be observed though that Boston was simply not meant to win this season, given how they started and how they finished. However, from a basic sporting standpoint, baseball is still a team sport and the best team wins. That's the real reason why Joe Maddon is leading his team into playoffs for the third time in four years and why Francona is no longer manager in Boston.
