McAdam: How the West was won - on the Red Sox' second try

It took them a while -- almost five full months -- but the Red Sox, finally, figured out how to have a successful road trip to the West Coast.

In terms of results, this one couldn't have been more different than that one.

On that one, you'll no doubt recall, the Red Sox tripped and stumbled their way from Seattle to Oakland to Arizona at the tail end of March and the first week or so of April, losing eight of the first 11. In a sense, they've been trying to overcome that pratfall ever since.

Their 4-3 win over the Los Angeles Angels Sunday capped another winning series and left the Red Sox 6-2 on the eight-game trek that took them to San Diego, Colorado and Anaheim.

The second time's the charm, apparently.



The win Sunday left the Sox five games out of the second and final wildcard spot with 25 games remaining. Their postseason chances remain remote, but not quite non-existent.

The season began with the starting pitchers woefully unprepared for the rigors of the regular season, a weakness that the Mariners, A's and Diamondbacks all exploited in winning their respective series against the Sox. With starters not yet fully built up, the Sox fell behind early and often on that first road trip, and couldn't climb out of the holes they had constructed.

By the time the Sox returned to Boston for their home opener, they were already reeling. It wasn't until two weeks later, with a sweep of the Rays on the road, that they began something of a turnaround.

Flash forward 120 or so games, and some of the problems haven't changed.

Chris Sale will not, to borrow a phrase from Rick Pitino, be walking through that door. David Price returned Sunday for the first time in almost a month, rarely topped 91 mph with his fastball and was judged to be done after two innings, thanks to 45 pitches. Nathan Eovaldi, who, in-between visits to the West Coast, missed half a season, is getting stronger, but still not yet completely built up after elbow surgery and an emergency detour to the bullpen.

Rick Porcello gamely soldiers on, taking the ball every five days. He's second on the team in innings and wins but there's been little pretty about his season. Eduardo Rodriguez has emerged -- in this case, somewhat by default -- as the team's preeminent starter.

The fifth starter, for now, doesn't exist, though the role could be filled by Jhoulys Chacin, who was cut loose recently by a team whose playoff prospects were only slightly more dire than the Sox' themselves.

The new formula -- the one that allowed the Sox to take two-of-three from the Padres, two straight from the Rockies and two-of-three from the Angels --consists of a powerful Boston lineup jumping out to early leads, at which point the offense goes to sleep and counts on the bullpen to hold on for dear life. Mostly, it worked out fine over the last 10 days.

On Sunday, that included entrusting three pitchers who, until rosters expanded earlier in the day, weren't good enough to be part of a 13-man pitching staff ranked 19th out of all 30 MLB teams.

That meant Travis Lakins, Ryan Weber and Hector Velazquez were asked to get 15 of the 27 outs, which they did. From there, Matt Barnes gave up his eighth homer of the year and Brandon Workman walked the usual tightrope in the ninth, with the potential tying run on first when it ended.

The trip -- and the series against the Angels in particular -- did nothing to complete erase concerns about the bullpen, which blew saves in each of the first two games of the series and seemed to be giving it serious consideration again in the eighth and ninth innings Sunday.

At this point, it's hard to say what is emotionally driving the Red Sox more in the final weeks: the looseness that comes with the we're-probably-not-gonna-do-this-but-let's-have-some-fun-anyway atmosphere that tends to envelop almost-out-of-it teams everywhere OR the desperation that seeps in when an underachieving team looks up at the calendar and realizes it can't afford more than a handful of losses the rest of the way.

In the end, motivation doesn't matter. The 6-2 trip keeps the Red Sox alive for a while longer, with the vastly superior Twins and Yankees awaiting back at Fenway.

Much later than they would have preferred, let the record show that the Sox finally figured out some things out West.

Whether they did so in time remain a longshot at best.