It's stretches like these that make me contemplate why I cheer for the Red Sox. In the most important part of the season, the Red Sox have failed to play disciplined baseball; there is no passion, no effort and no emotion on this baseball team. This weekend's series against the New York Yankees underscored the Red Sox's season: uninspiring. With their most recent loss to the last-place Baltimore Orioles, the Red Sox perilously hold the second-place wild card spot in the American League, with the spunky Seattle Mariners and dangerous Toronto Blue Jays nipping at their heels.
This atrocious stretch of baseball has Red Sox fans wondering what went wrong within the organization that changed this team's fate so quickly. Sure, you could blame the COVID-19 outbreak that ravaged the team in early September and forced a full roster turnover. However, most baseball analysts still can't point their finger on the main cause of this mini-collapse. Yes, this Red Sox team wildly outperformed expectations this season and held the American League East division for more than half of the season, but what changed?
Even though the Red Sox have not played like a playoff team since late July, their most recent stretch of baseball prior to the Yankees series was inspiring towards this fan base. They rattled off seven straight wins, most of them in a very convincing fashion. This team was now injected with a massive dose of confidence heading into the weekend.
Boy did that change quickly.
On Friday night, the Red Sox received an uninspiring outing from Nathan Eovaldi and the Yankees shelled him for seven runs. Gerritt Cole dominated the potent Red Sox lineup and the pinstripes rolled to an 8–3 victory. Yet, even though this was a gruesome loss at the hands of their biggest rival, I was not discouraged — they were due for a dreadful performance. Saturday, however, was a different story. While the Red Sox held the lead for 7.2 innings, Tanner Houck suddenly decides that his slider is the perfect pitch to throw on a 3–2 count (spoiler alert: it's not) and walks two straight batters. One hit batsmen later, and Giancarlo Stanton smokes a baseball over the Green Monster, taking the life out of the Red Sox.
Sunday's game was no better, as various mental errors ultimately killed the Red Sox that night. Bobby Dalbec looked like a high school JV player at first base. Garrett Richards couldn’t find the strike zone. Jose Iglesias forgot that Anthony Rizzo can't run. And to make matters worse, all of these mistakes resulted in a four-run eighth inning for the Yankees.
Even if these umpires were downright horrible for much of this game, Red Sox fans should not place the blame on them. Yes, Aaron Judge wouldn’t have hit that two-run double if the home plate umpire made the correct determination on that strike three call; Giancarlo Stanton is still sending that next pitch to New Hampshire, though. After the dust settled, the Red Sox lost 6–3, arguably their most crushing defeat this season.
The writing is now on the wall for this Red Sox team. With five games remaining in the season, they must either win all five or at least go 4–1 to effectively guarantee a spot in the wild card game. While those two outcomes are entirely possible, this is the Red Sox that we are talking about. None of these wins are guaranteed, and the Red Sox must play mistake-free baseball if they want a fighting chance. Anyone feeling shades of 2011 yet?
