At last check, the Red Sox trail the Royals by 6 in the 12th inning. This team will be lucky to win 90 games. It’s 2000 & 2001 all over again.
UPDATE: The Sawx stood 48-28 (.632, a 102-win pace) after sweeping the Mets in late June. With tonight’s loss they are now 27-39 (.409, a 96-loss pace) since.
SECOND UPDATE: Here’s Boston’s hitting and pitching stats over that stretch. The offense isn’t terrible, but there’s not a ton of help there for Ortiz and Manny. Pitching-wise, most everyone has been poor.
4 thoughts on “The Fallen Sky”
Comments are closed.
Can’t say that it should be unexpected. Few teams have had as many key injuries. Although, the Yanks sure found a way w/o Shef & Godzilla, didn’t they?
The team fell apart when they lost Varitek to injury. The young relievers and Timlin couldn’t get anybody out, and it was also around that time that Papelbon stopped being unhittable. By the time Schilling and Ortiz were out they were already 10 games behind.
I’ve had Schilling on my fantasy team all season….he was definitely not doing well before his injury. IIRC, his ERA was around 5 for the second half. Chalk it up to a lost season & gear for next year (not my team, I’m still going strong, I’m talking about the Sox).
Theo has got to take some heat for this. Certainly there is no contingency plan that would account for the nearly simultaneous loss of Ortiz, Manny, Nixon, Varitek, Pena, Wakefield, Lester and Gonzalez (not to mention the more recent injury to Papelbon) the fact is that they went into this season with a bullpen that included only 1 know commodity (Timlin) and no lefthanded pitching. Other than patchwork stuff nothing was done to address this situation. Minor leaguers were brought up who either are not ready or are simply not very good. I can’t fault him for bringing over Beckett and Lowell (although watching Sanchez throw a no-hitter and Handley Ramirez develop into a 5 tool guy is painful) as generally proven players are worth prosepects but Beckett has been average at best. Shoring up the pitching should have been a priority from Day 1 but he chose to hope Wells got healthy, Wakefield would come back, Beckett would stop giving up HRs, Schilling would stay as a #1 and that the farm system would produce guys who could pitch in a pennant race. In the past 2 years Theo has not done a lot to make this team more solid and most of the moves have turned out to be less than break even. The worry, now that this season is done, is what the future holds. The rotation includes two guys over 40, Beckett a 22year old with some form of cancer and… ? The bullpen literally (until Papelbon’s injury is assessed) has no one that could be counted on in it. The line-up may be OK if Crisp has an injury free season, Lowell has another good year, Pena can be an everyday player and the rest of the infield has good years again. I think all these things are asking a lot. Perhaps they can re-tool a la the Mets but Omar has pretty much kicked Theo’s ass on talent evaluation and ability to act in the past two years. Hopes for the future are shakier than I have seen in several years.