A Cold August

It’s late in August; there’s a chill in the air; in fact it feels like fall tonight. But it’s feeling like it will be a fall without the RedSox in the post-season. There are fewer than 40 games left in the regular season; and the Sox trail both the Yankees and the Rays by six in the loss column. Too much ground to make up, I’m afraid.

Boston had a chance to make up ground on their recent road trip. Both NY and Tampa Bay faltered. But they blew two leads in the late innings, and instead of going 7-3 on that road trip, they came home 5-5, no closer to either the Yankees or the Rays. Now some times going five hundred on the road is OK, but not when they need to make up ground in a hurry. The worst game was up in Toronto a week ago last Thursday, where they took a 5-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth, and then surrendered four runs. That loss was made even more painful by contrast with the Yankees come from behind win in Texas. They made up five runs, on the road, right about the same time the Sox were blowing that lead in the Rogers Center. Teams that can do that - that can come from behind, especially on the road - are teams that end up playing when the weather turns cold. And teams that give away leads in the late innings; they don’t get to play much in October.

It would be convenient to blame this year on injuries. After all, Cuse couldn’t get past Butler in the sweet sixteen because they missed AO in the post. And the Cs lost game 7 to the Lakers because they didn’t have Perkins anchoring the D, and keeping LA off the boards. But the injuries didn’t make the big difference this year. I know the Sox rarely had their starting lineup on the field all year long. But the bench played pretty darn well. Bill Hall has 17 home runs, one more than J.D. Drew. McDonald, Nava, Kalish -- they’ve all had timely hits. Despite all the injuries, the Sox have scored more runs than every team in Major League baseball, except the Yankees.

It wasn’t the injuries; it was the bullpen. With the exception of Bard, the bullpen has been inconsistent at best, and MIA at worst. I know Pap has his 30 saves again, and he’s worked his ERA down of late; it’s now hovering around 3. But he really hasn’t been the same guy as in past years, which is really weird, considering that he’s about to become a free agent. But never mind that. Look at the rest of the pen. Either Oki has lost something, or else the rest of the AL has figured him out. Whatever, his ERA is up around 6. Delcarmen is pretty much of a disaster; Ramon Ramirez is gone; Wake is 3-9; and the rest of the pen is occupied by journeymen who weren’t really wanted by anyone else. If you think back to 2007, when Oki and Pap were virtually unhittable in the post-season, there was no way the Sox won without their bullpen. Same thing for 2004. Remember 14 scoreless innings of relief in Games 4 and 5? Remember Foulke not giving up an earned run in the post-season? So even if Boston made a run, what could they do in the playoffs with only Bard and an inconsistent Papelbon? Meanwhile, Mariano Rivera, who now collects social security, carries an ERA of only 1.18. You need a microscope to see his ERA, and the guy is older than dirt.

In 2004, I remember the Sox went on a tear in August, winning 20 of 21 or something like that. They were sweeping everyone. And from around August 7, a week or so after the big trade, they played .740 ball through the end of the World Series. I kept waiting for that to happen this year. I kept telling myself; wait till they get healthy. Beckett will come back; V-Mart will start hitting; Pedroia will rejoin the lineup. Well, all of that happened, but the streak never happened. That .740 stretch is just a fading memory.

Probably, they’ll tease us a little before it’s over. They’ll close the gap on one or both of he teams that are now tied atop the AL East. But when October rolls around, I expect it will be ‘wait till next year’ once more. There really is a chill in the air.