As you and I rest and relax on this Labor Day, we know one thing for certain: these Red Sox can’t afford to take any more days off.
Another flatline series in Detroit has officially put Boston back in desperation territory as they begin their first full series in the month of September a hearty 4 1/2 games behind Kansas City for the final AL wild-card spot.
It all comes on the heels of a thoroughly mediocre month of August, where the Red Sox went 13-15 and have gone from nine games over .500 on Aug. 6 to just three games over at 70-67 following Sunday’s 4-1 debacle.
On face value, a deficit of fewer than five games may not look like the worst spot to be in heading into the final month of the season. But here’s the problem… the Sox have played themselves into a spot where they now have company.
While Boston remains the top “bubble” team in the wild card race, their lead on the rest of the pack has all but evaporated. Detroit is now a half-game back, while Seattle is one game behind and Tampa Bay is only 2 1/2 in the mirror.
It certainly doesn’t help that the bats have gone M.I.A. once again. The Sox scored just one run in each of their final two games in Detroit after battling out a 7-5 extra-innings win in the opener. In their last 10 games, they’ve averaged 2.9 runs per game (the June 26th makeup not included) while giving up 4.6.
Now, I’m no mathematician, but those don’t seem like sustainable numbers for a team with supposed postseason aspirations…
“Right now, there’s not much going on,” Alex Cora said about his team’s offense. “It’s been going on for a while, so we’ve just got to regroup, reassess and go from there tomorrow. It’s not about hitting the ball hard, right? Like, we’re not even doing that.”
So what’s the fix, Alex?
“We’ve got to get back to dominating the strike zone, hitting the ball, pitches in the zone and hit ‘em hard. When you start doing that, good things are gonna happen.”
(Oh, and as for Cooper Criswell’s early hook … what is there to say, really? This is what baseball looks like in 2024. The game isn’t managed with the eyes as much as it is with the calculator. Cora recently insisted he was managing like it was the postseason, but playoff teams are quick to change plans based on the results. Yanking a guy after four perfect innings on 52 pitches thrown — fever than half of Criswell’s season-high — with your team needing a win in the worst way just isn’t something a playoff team would do…)
One thing that didn’t come across to me in Cora’s post-series assessment on Sunday was the confidence he’s recently had in his team’s ability to turn it around. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I didn’t hear the “we’ll bounce back” assurance Cora gave us after the Toronto split?
At some point, manifesting confidence loses its effectiveness. It’s probably time for Cora to try something else as he scrambles to find the right buttons to push to jumpstart his team heading into their final 25.
Desperation just isn’t something we’ve heard much of coming out of the Sox’ clubhouse. Certainly not from Cora, and certainly not from the players… including veteran players who should be able to recognize how dire the situation really is.
Instead of “we need to win now,” it’s been more like “we’ll still have a chance to win later”…
"There's still lots of baseball to play,” Tyler O’Neill told reporters Sunday. "We’ve got a lot of talent on this roster. … The course is right in front of us. It just depends if we take it or not and hopefully there’s a good streak for us this September.”
“Hopefully” this team wakes up to the harsh reality that their season is slipping away, and they need to do something about it — now. And “hopefully” that means more to this team that the verbal shrug of the shoulders that O’Neill gave last night…
That “tomorrow” when Cora hopes his group will finally figures things out? It’s today.
Some teams around the league have already realized this, of course. Including the Mets, who will send veteran Luis Severino to the mound opposite Boston starter Brayan Bello for Monday night’s nationally televised series opener.
“From now on, it’s a must-win series for us,” Severino told the New York Post before New York finished off a three-game sweep of a very-sweepable Chicago White Sox team. “We have to win every series if we want to stay in the playoff conversation.”
What a completely opposite tone. There is no “hope” in the Mets’ approach. There is only “do” … or they die, and they know it. And the Mets aren’t even in as bad a spot as the Sox, trailing Atlanta for the final NL wild card by only one game.
So what do you say, Red Sox? The time for patience is gone. Now is the time when winners find a way to win, and losers crumble and make excuses. There’s no mystery in which of those the Sox have sounded more like of late…
Beat the Mets? Nah. You’d better sweep the Mets…
Gethin Coolbaugh is a columnist for Boston Sports Journal. Follow him @GethinCoolbaugh on X/Twitter.