McAdam: Red Sox can run, but not hide, from their disastrous season

Now that the finish line is, mercifully, within sight for the 2020 Red Sox, there's a sense of resignation and relief.

That's understandable. Very few positive developments took place from late July until this weekend. That tends to be the case when a team finishes with one of the five worst records in Major League Baseball.

But the closer to the end we get, the more revisionist history is creeping into the narrative.

In a Zoom call with reporters Friday afternoon, J.D. Martinez labeled the season an aberration in an apparent effort to put his sub-par performance into some context. And later on, on a Zoom call of his own, Ron Roenicke said history will look back on 2020 and regard it as somewhat less than real.

Excuse me?

It's patently obvious that the 2020 season was going to be different from the start. That much was clear when the concept of the 60-game schedule was introduced. The season began in late July, didn't feature an All-Star Game (or a break) and teams for the first time ever played only a third of their in-league opponents.

There were protocols in place, but no fans in hand. So yes, it was very, very different.

But the suggestion that it was somehow illegitimate is nonsense.



Everyone signed off on it -- owners and union. The teams played equitable schedules and give or take an exception or two, will play the same number of games. Despite a couple of outbreaks and some hand-wringing, Major League Baseball got through its planned schedule.

There was a beginning, a middle, and now, the end.

It behooves Martinez to suggest that the entire enterprise was artificial, because that explains his dropoff at the plate.

"I'm just going to get back to my routine, really,'' said Martinez when asked about his winter plans, "and actually have an offseason to prepare, and not be stuck in my house under quarantine for two months. I don't know -- just waiting for everything to go back to normal, really.

"It was just a very weird year. You're expected to perform at elite levels when there's an entire epidemic going on in the world. It's not really an excuse, but it's tough. It's a lot to ask.''

Indeed it is. Yet for every established player like Martinez, Christian Yelich and Javier Baez experiencing a significant downturn, there were many more who performed at the levels expected of them, or better: Mookie Betts, D.J. LeMahieu, Mike Trout, Jose Abreu, Nelson Cruz, Freddie Freeman, Manny Machado, Anthony Rendon.

All of them managed to do well without the use of in-game video. All of them figured out a way to make up for spending less time at the ballpark.

And importantly, none of them hid behind excuses.

Look, professional athletes are human. They're entitled to bad days and even underperforming seasons.

But finding refuge in "What did you expect?'' isn't a good look.

Roenicke's remarks weren't as off the mark. He wasn't trying to excuse the team's play or present a defense of their poor record.

Still, when asked how he would view the award winners and the eventual World Series champs, Roenicke appeared to suggest that the 2020 season will historically be viewed as some sort of aberration.

"I won't look at that the same as I would a full season,'' he said. "I think it's really good and important that we came back and played this year ... But it is a different season. I think you look at J.D. and the year he had. Our case is a little different because we didn't play well as a team (or make) the playoffs.

"But I'd like to forget about this year, for this club anyway and numbers for players, especially for JD. Some of the other great offensive players that I've seen through the years, having poor seasons this year ... I think next year, when we see the six-month-long season and then going into the playoffs, I think we'll see the more norm on these guys that are (usually) really consistent offensive players come back. So some of this is a little misleading.''

Is it? Every season, there are a handful of players who inexplicably slump and fail to play to their usual standards. Should those off years be dismissed out of hand, too?

And while it's unorthodox to have an MVP choice with only 200-something at-bats or a Cy Young Award-winner with 75 or so innings, it is what it is. As for the eventual championship team, that club will be asked to play more games in fewer days than any World Series winner before it. And against the backdrop of a pandemic, in a bubble.

That's accomplished enough for me.

Roenicke isn't one to duck accountability. He's been straightforward and responsible in explaining his team's epic downturn, most of which was beyond his own control (the loss of Chris Sale and Eduardo Rodriguez, chief among the reasons).

But as the final series of the season get underway, it's a little late -- and highly disingenuous-- to treat the 2020 MLB season like some fever dream, some abject experiment that no one could possibly take seriously.

The games counted. The records remain. And the Red Sox, for a variety of reasons, failed.

Can't we just leave it at that?