Meltdown
2 years in a row.
The Red Sox, despite pockets as deep as Wilt Chamberlain (he wore pants with massive pockets, trust me), are again also-rans.
It looked so good, the Red Sox up 3-2, the Rays down 7-0. Well, the Red Sox closer gave up 2 in the 9th and the Rays somehow, stunningly, stormed back to win 8-7. No doubt about it, the better team won. The Red Sox are good, but have turned into a sloppy, overpriced, hack of a team.
There will be significant fallout as a result of this collapse. Job security for Theo Epstein and Terry Francona is an issue. I think Papelbon wrote his ticket out of town (and perhaps his mega payday he has always wanted). Wow, so many issues up in the air. Let's take some time to watch other teams compete in the postseason while we digest this flop.
As a fan, it is so very disappointing to see the team you route for essentially piss away what could have been a rewarding season. I hope ownership takes a good long look and employs their various tools to figure out what went wrong and to never let it happen again.
My quick take is that Theo Epstein hasn't learned the Dan Duquette lesson that "not all baseball players can play in Boston." Evidence of this can be seen with Carl Crawford, John Lackey, JD Drew, Edgar Renteria, Bobby Jenks, Daisuke Mastuzaka. Perhaps not all GM's can play in this town.
More later.
Congratulations to the Rays, they deserved this playoff spot.
Comments
Best team in baseball from May-August. Nothing dramatic needs to be done.
Here are a few minor suggestions though:
1) Replace Drew with a quality player (not either rookie used last two years).
2) Find out if Youk is done, replace if necessary. Starting to have continuous injury issues.
3) You can only have one of Lowrie, Scutaro or Aviles type players in your lineup on a given day.
4) Send Crawford to therapy over the winter.
5) Offer Ortiz 2 yr at same $12m per. Take it or leave it. If he leaves, perhaps that frees up DH for Youk.
6) Offer Wake in exchange for his wanting to come back for his 18th season to teach Lackey the knuckleball and $1m. Fair compensation for his services next year.
7) sign Paplebon, you got Dice-K's money off the books in another year, why not?
8) Sign Ellsbury or if crazy agent man goes for broke then trade him while he has a couple years of arbitration rights so his value is maxed out.
See? Not much to address this offseason.
Posted by: blmeanie | September 29, 2011 12:25 PM |
Andy? I think that there is always the temptation to assign blame and let heads roll when a team falters. That is ALWAYS the case with Yankees fans when a WS ring doesn't srrive on schedule, after the check has cleared. I don't think that Tito (who I like) was responsible for all the injuries that hobbled the Sox. I also don't think that Theo or Tito can predict when a player is going to have a down year either. It's the guys who take the field that win or lose the games. I also don't think that ANYone can predict when a player (except maybe Pedro Feliciano) is going to hit the DL or lose his batter's eye or his release point. Fog happens - as a local saying goes.
Sorry to say (well, maybe not so sorry after all) I enjoyed, tremendously, watching the looks on Lackey's, Tek's and especially Papelbon's face when the O's walked off. I honestly dislike some of your players and (Schadenfreude? yep) I enjoyed the way Karma's payback sometimes is a huge, royal bitch.
I also am currently enjoying the lack of smirks and smugness from some of my lovely local Sox fans who are starting to realize that the Pats and Sox are human and sometimes their feces stinks just like everyone elses. :-)
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September 29, 2011 02:03 PM
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