It was a decade ago that the 2011 Red Sox saw their season -- and so much more -- come to an end at Camden Yards.
Did the same thing happen to the 2021 club Thursday night?
No matter what happens over the next three (or four.....or five...yes, it could get complicated) days, there won't be the thorough housecleaning that happened then. Alex Cora and Chaim Bloom do not, for now, have to worry about their job security.
Still, the parallels are striking. In 2011, the Red Sox needed to win two games in a three-game series with the lowly Orioles to secure a wild card spot. They failed, instead dropping two of three, including the final game.
This week, the Sox, again, would have put themselves in pretty good position for the wild card game by simply taking two-of-three from the O's, who have the worst record in the American League. And once more, the Sox tripped over themselves, dropping the first game and, on Thursday, the final game, too, 6-2.
Deja vu, anyone?
Unlike in 2011, the season isn't yet over for the Sox. They still have three games remaining with the Washington Nationals. Oddly, given that they've dropped five of the last six games, the Red Sox can still assure themselves of no worse than a play-in game by sweeping the Nats this weekend. And given that the Nats are in the basement of the N.L. East, with nothing to play for, that wouldn't exactly be far-fetched.
Then again, that's what people said before they went to Baltimore. And look what happened there.
What happened in the series finale, at least from an offensive standpoint, was a whole lot of nothing. Kike Hernandez homered on the game's first pitch, and the rest of the way, they managed just four more hits and one more run. Even that was more of a gift from the Orioles rather than anything the Sox themselves earned.
In all five of their recent losses, this one included, the team failed to score more than three runs. That offensive ineptitude was especially surprising Thursday, since the Sox were facing one Alexander Wells, owner of a 7.61 coming into this one.
"I'm surprised,'' conceded Cora. "We started off fast and we were putting up good at-bats and then, all of a sudden, just like two days ago, we had some empty at-bats. We weren't able to slow down the game. (You want to) work counts, grind at-bats and put pressure on the opposition. For a while there, we didn't do that. All of a sudden, you look up and you're in the sixth inning ... We didn't do enough offensively.''
That's an understatement. From the second through the fifth, the Red Sox collected just one hit and sent one batter over the minimum to the plate. After a leadoff double by J.D. Martinez in the seventh, the Sox didn't produce another hit -- an infield single, at that -- until two were out in the ninth and the game had long been decided.
"We didn't do much in the middle of the game tonight,'' said Cora.
And now, time is running out. The Sox are tied with Seattle and Toronto, all two games in back of New York.
"We're a really resilient club,'' insisted Nick Pivetta, Thursday's starting pitcher. "We've got to forget what happened in the past and move forward to the next game. And I think that's what's most important, is really show our resilience and go out there and compete and that starts with Game 1 against Washington.''
"Obviously, we've got to win,'' said Cora. "We've been talking about winning series and we haven't won the last two. This one wasn't good at all. But I think we still control our own destiny. For everything that's gone wrong the last few days, it feels good that tomorrow, you wake up and it's like, 'OK, you win out with this series and we can play in October.''
But the fact is, that's been the case for the last little while, and look where that's gotten them.
This team seems to be experiencing some cognitive dissonance: just because they can get into the playoffs by taking care of business doesn't mean it's going to happen.
The fact that three more games remain to be play is the biggest distinction between now and 2011. But as we've seen, over and over, for the past week, opportunity isn't the same as guarantee.