On Monday, the Red Sox gave up.
There was little, if any, pushback in the two games that followed to close out their six-game homestand.
In front of the home crowd as the spotlight turned on them with the Mookie Betts, the Dodgers and the Astros coming to town in the midst of a playoff push, the Sox went a mere 1-5, capping it off with a sweep at the hands of Houston, the team they are (or were) chasing in the American League Wild Card race.
Boston entered the three-game set just 4.5 games back on Monday. Win the series, and stay right there in the mix. Simple, especially for a team that can seemingly get red-hot at any moment this season, right?
But as easily as they can get hot, the Sox can also turn ice-cold. That they did.
Things quickly went down the tubes in Monday's 13-5 drubbing, one in which Kyle Barraclough was made to be the sacrificial lamb as Boston's heavily-worked bullpen could not offer any aid in the fight. After Tuesday's 6-2 sleepwalk and Wednesday's 7-4 result, which began with a quick 2.2-inning, six-earned-run face plant from Kutter Crawford, Boston is now well behind the pace, sitting 7.0 games out of the final Wild Card spot, currently occupied by the Rangers.
"It's super frustrating," Crawford said of his inability to provide more innings on Wednesday. "I know I'm probably not the only one that's frustrated with the result. As a staff, we need to be able to pitch deeper into ballgames. Obviously, I wasn't able to do that today."
Any sort of momentum is slipping fast as Alex Cora's group has dropped five of six and seven of 10, finishing the month of August at 13-15 and wrapping up their 16 games in 16 days at 7-9 after being swept at home for the fourth time this season.
"I mean, we knew we had a tough challenge ahead of us," Crawford said of the homestand. "Losing all those games, though, is kind of a kick in the gut, you know?"
The math is not on their side, sitting at 69-65 with 28 games remaining. FanGraphs currently has their odds to make the playoffs at 4.4 percent, which is somehow lower than the 64-70 Guardians.
And so it will be another September full of meaningless baseball before heading off into the cool autumn breeze for the third straight season with no playoffs. Chaim Bloom said it best, the Red Sox are and were "underdogs" the whole time.
But it didn't have to be that way.
Red Sox starters have thrown the fifth-fewest innings of any team in Baseball (633.0), according to FanGraphs. Their relievers have hurled the fourth-most (542.0).
It's even worse since the All-Star break (when Boston had won five in a row and eight of nine, sitting a mere 2.0 games out of the Wild Card). Since the second half began, the Red Sox bullpen's 186.1 innings rank the second-most in baseball. Their relievers have thrown more innings than the starters (183.2, third-fewest in baseball) in that span.
Bloom's solution at the trade deadline was to add utilityman Luis Urías. Even with a patchwork pitching staff, made up almost entirely of unknowns among the starters, especially in terms of health, his only solution was the hollowed-out husk of Corey Kluber, who has long been done for the season after sporting a 7.04 ERA and a -0.9 WAR.
Now, the pitching and the results have started to feel it.
James Paxton has made it through more than 5.0 innings just three times in eight second-half starts. Sale has been heavily limited since returning from an extended stay on the IL. Crawford's command and especially his velocity have continued to take hits as his innings total clicks higher and higher. Brayan Bello, their most reliable starter on the balance of the season, is still a youngster learning on the job and dealing with the trials and tribulations of finding his way in the Majors.
On Wednesday Crawford became the fifth straight Boston starter to make it through fewer than five innings. The rotation averaged just 4.6 innings per start this month, going fewer than five in 15 of 28 games in August and five or fewer in 21 of 28.
With the bullpen taxed, Barraclough had to eat it after Chris Murphy did the same on Sunday. But saving the bullpen was all for naught as the starters and supporting cast continued to come up short. The Red Sox were out of it on Wednesday before Cora could even call for reinforcements.
"We didn't pitch. That's the bottom line, right?" the skipper said of the homestand. "I think since New York, you know, the starters have been grinding through it, we're not getting deep enough and we've been paying the price the last 10 days. ... Combination of 16 days [with games] and not going deep into games. They're trying, they're grinding and they're doing their best. You know, it didn't happen in this stretch. We got the off day tomorrow, and hopefully, from Friday on, we can reset and go."
Cora always talks about having "tomorrow" to get back on track. After an off day tomorrow, the Red Sox will have a chance to at the very least save face against the lowly Royals before eventually being able to beat up on the putrid Yankees and the calamity that is the White Sox.
But with challenges against the Division-leading Orioles as well as the Rays, the Rangers and the Blue Jays on tap in a daunting September, there will soon be no more tomorrows for the 2023 Boston Red Sox.