Mike Aviles looked back at the celebrating Orioles after the Red Sox' collapse was completed on Sept. 28. (AP)
In the ninth inning of the Red Sox’ 4-3 loss to the Orioles on Sept. 28, the ticking time bomb that was Boston’s season finally blew up. In just three plays, the Red Sox watched a 3-2 lead turn into a 4-3 walk-off loss with closer
Jonathan Papelbon on the mound.
Just minutes later, the Red Sox saw their season end when, down in Tampa,
Evan Longoria hit a walk-off home run to cap a seven-run comeback against the Yankees for an 8-7 Rays win. The Rays won the wild card, shocking a Sox team that just 28 days before had been nine games up in the wild card race.
“This is one for the ages, isn’t it?” said Sox general manager
Theo Epstein on the night the season ended. “What was going on with those two games, how poorly we played in September. We can’t sugarcoat this, this is awful.
“We did it to ourselves, and put ourselves in a position for a crazy night like this to end our season. It shouldn’t have been this way … 7-20 in September. We go 9-18, we’re where we want to be, and 9-18 is what, winning a third of your games? The worst teams in baseball win a third of their games. There’s no excuse, we did this to ourselves.”
So how did the Red Sox, a team that in June and July was the best in the major leagues, fail to win even a third of their games in September?
It started innocently enough, when the Sox lost the first game of the month in 4-2 fashion to the Yankees in a game that held hints of what was to come. Starter
Jon Lester lasted just five innings, but his pitching line looked OK. He allowed one run on seven hits with six strikeouts and three walks. It was a mediocre outing, but certainly not a disastrous one.
Then, in the seventh inning with the Red Sox ahead, 2-1,
Daniel Bard had his first meltdown of the month. With two runners on base, Bard battled New York catcher
Russell Martin, who, on a full count, doubled to right field, driving in both runners and giving the Yankees a 3-2 lead that they would never relinquish.
The Red Sox dropped to a half-game lead in the division because of the loss, but the Rays were still way behind in the wild card race, and both the Red Sox and Yankees seemed like locks to make the playoffs.
But then the Red Sox went 2-8 in their next 10 games.
That Yankees game on Sept. 1, and most of the next 26 games in September, was a display in how a lack of quality pitching, quality hitting and quality fielding can ruin a season. The Red Sox received poor performances from every one of their pitchers in August, including aces Lester and
Josh Beckett down to spot-starters
Andrew Miller and
Erik Bedard.
The Red Sox as a staff compiled a 5.84 ERA in September, by far their highest ERA of the season. Their five regular starters, Lester, Beckett, Miller,
John Lackey and
Tim Wakefield, went a combined 3-11 in the month. Papelbon, who blew just one save entering September, blew two saves in the final month, including the one that ended the season.
Bard, the steady bridge to Papelbon all season, suddenly could not figure out how to get batters out. Bard’s ERA, which had not risen above 3.65 all season, ballooned to 10.64 in September as he went 0-4. In a game against the Blue Jays on Sept. 7, Bard entered in the seventh inning with the Red Sox leading 8-6. He induced a grounder to get out of the inning, but in the eighth, Bard walked in two runs and left the game with the bases loaded for
Matt Albers, who then gave up a three-run double to
Edwin Encarnacion. The Red Sox attempted to rally but eventually lost the game 11-10.
That type of outing became the norm for Bard in September.
But a collapse does not fall solely on pitching. The Red Sox were certainly an injured team in September. Third baseman
Kevin Youkilis played in just 10 games in the month as he attempted to battle through a sports hernia that would require surgery in the offseason. Bedard suffered from a strained latissimus muscle and knee injuries.
Clay Buchholz had been out since June because of a stress fracture in his spine.
J.D. Drew strained his neck while rehabbing from a broken finger. Beckett suffered an ankle injury early in the month.
Some of the Red Sox injuries were blamed on players being in poor shape. It did not help that after the season, Beckett, Lester and Lackey were accused of consuming beer and fried chicken in the clubhouse on days they were not pitching rather than supporting their teammates.
Then there was the
Carl Crawford conundrum. Crawford was an issue all season for the Red Sox, after signing a seven-year, $142 million contract. He experienced the worst statistical season in his major league career. Crawford hit a career-low .255 in 2011 and struggled in September as he had all season, hitting .264 with a .295 on-base percentage. He recorded 24 hits in the month and nearly matched that with 21 strikeouts.
But the worst of Crawford in September was his fielding. Crawford suffered with his fielding all season, as his UZR dropped from a +18.2 with the Rays in 2010 to a -2.2 with the Red Sox in 2011.
Crawford’s fielding really hurt the Red Sox in September. He misplayed a ball in a 9-1 loss to the Yankees, when, with the Yankees ahead 1-0 in the second inning, Crawford failed to catch a soft liner off the bat of Martin. Had he caught it, it easily could have led to a double play since
Andruw Jones was way far away from second base. Instead of a double play, the Yankees ended up taking a 4-0 lead on a three-run home run off the bat of
Derek Jeter later that inning.
Then, of course, there was the play on which the Orioles walked off in the final game of the season, when a
Robert Andino liner dropped in front of Crawford’s glove when it appeared that Crawford had a good chance to catch the ball.
Boston combined its poor pitching, conditioning and fielding with inconsistent hitting. At times, the Red Sox demonstrated the potent offense they showed over the summer. They scored 44 runs in their first three wins in September, but they scored just 28 runs in their first nine losses of the month.
Jacoby Ellsbury (.358 average in September) and
Marco Scutaro (.387 average) were the only consistent hitters all month.
And so, at the end of the month, when the Red Sox entered the final game of the season tied with Tampa Bay and continued to struggle with the fundamentals, it came as no surprise that their season ended short of a playoff berth.
Some members of the team still seemed to struggle with their personal responsibility in the meltdown. First baseman
Adrian Gonzalez, when asked what went wrong in the season, mentioned that the Red Sox schedule was tough and that the team played too many late ESPN games that got them into their next city at odd hours, leaving them exhausted.
But at the end of the day, most of the Red Sox, and fans alike, watched stunned as the lights went out on the season in such historically terrible fashion. For a club that had experienced its share of low moments throughout the years, some, including
David Ortiz,
acknowledged that the 2011 September collapse may be among the worst Red Sox moments in history.
““We walked into September nine games ahead, and look where we’re at right now,” Ortiz said after the team’s final loss. “It can’t go no worse than that. This is worse. I never put any attention to where we’re at. … But at one point, I was like, ‘Wait a minute — we walked into September nine games ahead.’ ”
