What Went Wrong: Red Sox Bats Get Cold at Wrong Time

Three years ago, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series--their fourth since 2004. What followed was two seasons of disappointment, dismay, and the proverbial axe falling on certain people. Their 2019 season was immensely disastrous, as they went 84-78--24 games worse than their 2018 championship season--and missed the postseason. Pitching was the main problem, though if you asked then-GM Dave Dombrowski, the pitching was just fine. That statement was why I used the word "then-GM." Dombrowski was fired in September of 2019, less than a full season after delivering a championship to Boston. It was that bad.

The COVID-shortened 2020 season saw the Red Sox in the bottom of the American League East at 24-36, and had also been marred by evidence of cheating during said 2018 season. However, 2021 saw the Red Sox surge and go 92-70 and reach the postseason as one of the American League's Wild Cards. The Red Sox defeated the rival New York Yankees in the Wild Card Game, and ousted the then-defending American League Champions, the Tampa Bay Rays, in a four-game Division Series. As a result, we got the Red Sox against the Houston Astros in the American League Championship Series, or as this Yankees fan called it, "the ALCS From Hell."

Despite losing Game One, the Red Sox's bats were powered up in Game Two in Houston, and continued in Game Three at home in Fenway. The team scored 21 total runs in the two games, winning both easily, and appeared to be on the verge of possibly overtaking the Astros in the entire series. So what went wrong? The same thing that went wrong for the Milwaukee Brewers in this year's postseason: their bats froze. Three runs scored in the final three games; two in Game Four, one in Game Five, and shut out (and nearly no-hit) in Game Six. The pitching didn't help matters, either; the Red Sox were outscored 23-3 in Games 4-6. And the fact that this was a Houston team whose pitching had been riddled with injuries made Boston really look bad.

So there you have it. The Houston Astros are in the World Series. In their fifth straight ALCS appearance, they won their third pennant in that span. You know what this means? We are four Astros wins away from what will undoubtedly be the biggest, loudest, and most annoying "I told you so" in all of sports history. Let's make one thing perfectly clear: the Astros cheated to win the World Series in 2017. They cheated to reach the World Series in 2017. They cheated again to reach the World Series in 2019. Now, the angering thing is not that the Astros cheated, it's that they (for all intents and purposes) got away with it. They received slap on the wrist punishments for what happened, and even worse, commissioner Rob Manfred (prior to the delayed start of the 2020 season) even threatened to punish any pitcher who threw at any Astros hitters--regardless of intent.

And as for the Red Sox, well, I would think that they would still be some sort of force in the American League East in 2022 and beyond. It'll be a three team race in that division: the Rays, Red Sox, and Yankees, with the Blue Jays possibly being a factor, while the Orioles serve as the team holding all four of them up. It should be interesting to see what the Red Sox do during this offseason.

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