McAdam: For the Red Sox, being swept in New York this weekend may be another one of 'those' series

Over the course of the long Red Sox-Yankee history, a single series between the rivals has occasionally served as the defining moment of a particular season for both franchises.

In 1978, that series was the legendary Boston Massacre, when the Yankees, having already stormed back from being 14 games back in the summer, nearly finished the Sox off with a four-game sweep of the Sox at Fenway in early September. The Sox eventually had their own comeback later that month, but we all know how that ended.

In 2006, against the backdrop of a full-on Manny Ramirez tantrum, the Yankees took a five-game series from the Sox -- a four-game set grew because of a makeup game from earlier in the season -- and effectively finished them off for the year. The Sox limped to a third-place finish, 11 games behind New York.

Last year, the Red Sox used a Yankee visit to Fenway in early August to salt away their division championship. Leading by 5.5 games when the four-game set began, the Sox won all four to move 9.5 games ahead and the East was effectively theirs. The winning margin was eight at the end.

Which brings us to this weekend, this season.



The Sox trailed the Yankees by 10 and a half games as the series got underway, and no one had any delusions about the Sox still being the in the race for the division title. For the Red Sox, that dream pretty much died last Sunday at Fenway when they failed to finish off a sweep and fell to nine games out.

Still, though they were reeling after being swept by Tampa Bay, the thought was winning three-of-four  - or at worst, getting a split on the road -- would stabilize things for the Red Sox and get them back on track in the wild card race.

Instead, the Red Sox were thoroughly outplayed and outclassed by the Yankees, swept away as though the first three games in Boston last weekend, when the Sox pounded the visitors by scoring 38 runs, never happened. Of the four games over the weekend at Yankee Stadium, only two -- the opener, a 4-2 loss and the second game of the doubleheader, tied at 4-4 in the seventh inning, could be considered competitive.

The Yankees had their way with the Sox, especially when it came to their starting pitchers. Only Eduardo Rodriguez pitched past the fourth inning and he still managed to give up four runs.

Boston's top three hitters in the lineup that seemed poised to explode just over a week ago, were nearly completely blanked. Together, Mookie Betts, Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts were 4-for-46. Of the four hits, three were singles. The totals for the trio: one extra-base hit, one run scored, one RBI.

The Yankees are so far ahead in the standings -- 14.5 games -- the Red Sox need binoculars to spot them.

But here's the really troubling result from the week from Boston's perspective: Thanks to their four losses at home and their four in New York, they're now nearly as far back in the loss column for the second wild spot -- seven games -- as they were behind the Yankees (eight games) the last time they won a game.

"It's a bad time to be playing bad baseball,'' acknowledged Bogaerts. "Obviously, these are tough losses. We've got to move on as quickly as possible.''

Meanwhile, manager Alex Cora is running out ways to address the losing streak. His team is in free fall and Cora is seemingly powerless to stop it, or, for that matter, to offer anything he hasn't said repeatedly for much of the 2019 season.

''It wasn't a good week,'' he understated. "Not just the trip (to New York), but the whole week. We've got a lot of work to do. We're in a big hole.''

That they are. The starters aren't giving them a chance, the bullpen can't be depended on, and now, the lineup, the one aspect of the team that has been strong for the past two months, has fallen off. There's literally nothing going right for the team currently.

Seven games back with 48 left to play is hardly insurmountable, especially considering that some of their wild card competitors are flawed, too, and are bound to cool at some time.

But this weekend, it looked like the fight went out of the Red Sox. They scored four runs after falling behind 7-0, but that served to make the game look respectable when the outcome was never really in doubt.

It's tempting to say that a return to Fenway will cure what ails them -- 12 of the next 15 are at home -- until you remember that they're exactly .500 in Boston this season.

A far more likely scenario is that this series with the Yankees will be looked back on as the moment when the season got away from them for good. Just like 2006 and 1978.