The end came, fittingly enough, in a hail of errors.
For all their strides this season -- developing new stars like Jarren Duran, turning Tanner Houck into a legitimate top-end starter -- the Red Sox remained hamstrung by their gloves.
In April and May, bad defense sent the team tumbling below .500. In June and July, they caught just enough to roar back up the standings and into wild card contention. But even at their best, the cracks were always evident, and on Monday night, the dam finally burst.
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There are moments in every season when the team's fate becomes clear, and Monday sure felt like one of them. After losing the resumption of a suspended game to the Blue Jays in the afternoon, the Red Sox found themselves clinging to hope in the ninth inning of the nightcap, down 5-3 with probably their best reliever, Chris Martin, on the mound.
They desperately needed to leave the deficit intact and then hope for a comeback, but here's what unfolded instead:
- Vladimir Guerrero led off with a line drive to right for a clean single ... except Tyler O'Neill kicked it, allowing Guerrero to take second on a bang-bang play.
- Alejandro Kirk bounced one to second base, which has just been a giant black hole all season. Romy Gonzalez fielded it cleanly but waited an extra beat before throwing to Martin covering. The pitcher dropped it and Guerrero scored.
- Ernie Clement grounded in easy inning-ending double play to shortstop David Hamilton, practically on top of the bag. He bobbled it and managed to complete the force, but the Jays remained alive.
- Clement stole second and then held up to avoid being hit by a Spencer Horwitz single to left. Clement's hesitation should've give the Red Sox a play at the plate, but outfielder Rob Refsnyder slipped and never made a throw.
And just like that, a 5-3 deficit became 7-3, and a season once brimming with such unexpected promise careened towards its inevitably disappointing conclusion.
August began with legitimate hopes of the playoffs, and ends with the Red Sox hoping to avoid a third straight last-place finish. If you were the betting type, the latter feels like the safer bet.
Five straight losses, all at home, each signifying in its own way the flaws that ultimately proved the team's undoing. Welcome to next year.
"It was a tough weekend," said manager Alex Cora. "We've just got to play better. We're capable of doing that. We established a brand of baseball throughout the season and right now, it's not happening, in every aspect of the game. We're not pitching well. We're not playing good defense. We're not hitting. It gets magnified, too, where we're at right now."
The standings tell an ugly story. The Red Sox trail the Wild Card-leading Royals by 6.5 games. Kansas City may end up winning the AL Central, so it's no longer the target. That distinction belongs to the Twins, who lead the Red Sox by five games. But whereas Boston once angled for the wild card alone, it now has company.
The Mariners made a managerial change and have won three of four to pull within half a game of the Sox. The Tigers, no one's idea of a contender, have won four straight to reach .500, just 1.5 games behind the Red Sox with three looming in Detroit this weekend. Even the woebegone Jays, easily baseball's most disappointing team, only trail by three games with three more still to play in Boston.
This is what the end looks like. In 2006, it was a five-game sweep in New York. In the infamous bridge year of 2010, Jacoby Ellsbury's broken rib set the tone early. We need never speak of 2011 again. The 2019, 2022, and 2023 clubs imploded right after lackluster trade deadlines. And now this.
Entrusting their fate to so many young players always opened the possibility of a stumbling, bumbling late-season letdown, because it's hard to endure the grind of 162 until you've experienced it.
So we'll have to satisfy ourselves with 2024 representing a first tangible step towards a better future and leave it at that.
