Valentine is the star of a new CBS Sports Fantasy Baseball commercial, where he — described on-screen as a “famous baseball manager” — recounts how he’s been fired a lot in his managerial career. Now, however, he can run his own fantasy team without having to be afraid of the hook.

The clip shows him being “fired” by various teams throughout his career — the Texas Rangers, the Chiba Lotte Marines (twice), the New York Mets (in his famous disguise) and finally, the Boston Red Sox. Part of the gag is that people watching can apparently go online and vote whether Bobby should be hired or fired again — presumably from his job of being a pitch man this time.

Valentine gets points for being able to poke fun at himself, but here’s guessing that there’s still a good chunk of people in New England who may be jumping on CBSSports.com for something other than fantasy baseball after they see the commercial.

Check it out in the video below.

Bobby Valentine

Valentine is starting a new job this week as the athletic director at Sacred Heart University, and that has included taking more questions about last season in Boston. While Valentine has previously defended his role in one of the worst letdowns a major league team has had in years, he took it to a new level this time.

“I thought I did a [heck] of a job in Boston,” Valentine said, according to WEEI. “I thought what had to be done there was done except for winning a pennant. But [Hall of Fame manager] Connie Mack wasn’t going to win with that team.”

While Valentine may have a point about the team’s inability to win, him saying that he did everything but get the pennant is something else. The Red Sox battled through dysfunction and many injuries, but they were expected to at least be close to a playoff team with their talent, not finish with 69 wins. Valentine has also been given blame for creating distractions as the team failed to get itself to even .500.

Valentine, who was praised throughout his managerial career for his tactical abilities, is now brushing off the impact of his managing — and putting the whole experience behind him.

“It’s six months of a 62-year life,” he said. “It’s six months of a 42-year career in baseball. It’s a blip, a little spot on the radar, as far as I’m concerned.”

Valentine had told the Boston Herald on Monday that he didn’t want to talk more about his Red Sox tenure, chalking up criticism to “stupid things that stupid people say.”

Valentine was fired a day after the season ended. The Red Sox then brought in John Farrell, the man many people thought could have kept the Sox on a winning track in 2012 after Terry Francona finished his time in Boston.

Bobby Valentine

The former Red Sox manager will be handling all sports in his new gig, as the Connecticut Post’s William S. Paxton  reports that Valentine has now agreed to become the next athletics director at Sacred Heart University. He will be taking over that position from Don Cook, who is retiring July 1.

“An intriguing opportunity has been presented to me and it’s something I really feel I can enjoy doing and I feel could be mutually beneficial,” Valentine said to the Post on Thursday night.

The Fairfield, Conn., school participates in Division I athletics, and fields 31 varsity teams. Valentine was fired as the Red Sox manager last season after leading the team to a 69-93 record and a last-place finish in the American League East.

David Ortiz

But while most players were lining up shots for a good cause, some were also ready to tee off on former Boston manager Bobby Valentine.

“Hopefully, we go back to a normal year and we don’t have that much controversy and stuff going on,” Ortiz said while talking about recovering from a lingering Achilles injury and looking toward next season, according to The Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham. “You can’t play baseball like that. It’s too much.

“Every year you learn in baseball that you deal with different people. Different things happen every year. It can’t be part of the good side always. … The good thing is that we are trying to fix things, and they tried to correct that by getting John [Farrell] as the new manager to make things better.”

While Ortiz didn’t mention Valentine by name, he hasn’t hidden his displeasure for last year’s skipper before. Valentine took a parting shot at Ortiz — one of the few players to support Valentine — on his way out, something Ortiz clearly was not happy with.

But other Sox players were ready to speak their minds.

“It was so obvious. Nobody wanted to talk to [Valentine] because nobody could trust him,” reliever Mark Melancon said, according to the Globe. “That’s never good.”

Melancon wouldn’t pin the Red Sox’ 93 losses or many players’ poor performances on Valentine, though. He said it was up to the players to do well. But in terms of getting the players going, he had low marks for the manager.

“I think there are things that can help you, a confidence booster or a trust factor,” he said. “Knowing somebody has your back and will stand behind you and is pulling for you is big. But that wasn’t always the case. I think a lot of guys felt there was some fakeness. There was a lack of trust in general.”

It likely won’t be the last time words are shared about the disastrous season with Valentine at the helm. But hopefully the players can get the slices and hooks out of their systems and come into spring training looking to make the most of their mulligan.

Valentine, who was joining New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman for one of Cashman’s favorite hobbies, began his descent Friday morning from the top of the Landmark Square building in downtown Stamford, Conn., as a part of a holiday celebration.

The 200-foot descent was caught on camera by a local radio station that was promoting the event.

While it may seem like Valentine had every reason to change his colors after leaving the Red Sox, he actually took the invitiation from Cashman last winter, shortly after being chosen as Boston’s new manager.

And yes, both Connecticut natives made it safely to the bottom.

Click here to see more photos of Valentine’s latest adventure>>

Thumbnail via Facebook/95.9 THE FOX

Aceves provided some of the more entertaining — or flat-out scary — moments in the second half of last year’s worth-forgetting season, feuding with former manager Bobby Valentine and letting his anger get the best of him several times.

Plenty of people thought Aceves had done enough to send himself out of town, but now that Valentine is gone and hope brims anew with the arrival of manager John Farrell, Aceves has a good chance of keeping a spot on the team.

Aceves, who earned $1.2 million last season as the part-time closer but who is versatile enough to be a long-innings reliever or even a starter, still has support within the organization due to his undeniable talent.

That starts with Farrell, who has already said he’ll take another look at the mercurial righty.

But another key member of the Red Sox, newly re-signed designated hitter and longtime leader David Ortiz, is also on Aceves’ side when it comes to finding a place to make the pitcher fit.

“Alfredo is a good guy,” Ortiz told Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston.com. “He has his issues, which I think they should sit down and talk to him about this offseason.”

Ortiz acknowledged that a lot of Aceves’ struggles this season had to do with personality problems and getting him to mesh on a team that had “25 different minds, 25 different personalities.” While Ortiz didn’t point the finger at Valentine, Aceves’ inability to recover his fragmented relationship with the manager certainly contributed to his increasingly awkward behavior.

“Aceves is a guy who is very emotional,” Ortiz said. “He reacts in the moment — [that's] the way he is. But that’s something that at some point you can control and just sit down and talk to him, let him know.

“He’s one of the guys who works hard here. He’s got the best stuff, and you got to take advantage of that. You have to sit down with him and say, ‘I’m your boss. This is what you’re going to do for me.’ And I guarantee you, he’ll do that.”

Farrell is widely considered just the type of manager who will do what Ortiz is suggesting, with Farrell having handled pitching staffs before. He’s known for keeping players accountable and helping them understand their roles.

Edes also contested the perception that Aceves has always had character issues, which some people have cited as a chief reason the Yankees cut him loose despite Aceves being increasingly reliable for New York in long relief situations. Edes said sources told him that Aceves was let go more for injury concerns than his behavior.

When Aceves is good, he’s been really good, but he bounced among several roles last season, with his most petulant moments arising when his job was adjusted. He was at first upset that he wasn’t chosen as a starter coming out of spring training before he settled in as the closer and was great for a long stretch. But then, when friction began with Valentine, and closer Andrew Bailey returned from the disabled list to take the ball late in some games, Aceves became rankled once again.

With the Red Sox desperately needing to hang on to the good pitching they have, Aceves could be a valuable commodity — especially if all the caveats that kept him from performing well last year have disappeared.

Dustin Pedroia

That’s why it was such a mess last spring when Pedroia got caught in the middle of comments made by new manager Bobby Valentine about veteran Kevin Youkilis. Valentine seemed to suggest that Youkilis was not playing hard anymore, and Pedroia quickly jumped to Youkilis’ defense — but seemed to take down the manager himself in the process.

Now, with both Valentine and Youkilis out of town, Pedroia remains a leader on the Red Sox, learning from the mishaps of a season that went wrong in plenty of ways.

Pedroia said Monday that, while he regretted how his words about Valentine came out, he wouldn’t change his defense of his teammate.

“I regret I said that in that way,” Pedroia said Tuesday afternoon on WEEI. “But I’m proud to a point where, you know, to be a team leader, you need to have your teammates’ backs under any circumstances. … I felt like Youkilis was kind of thrown in a corner by himself. When the top dog comes down on you that hard, you know, I felt like Youk needed someone to be there for him to have his back.”

How Pedroia ended up defending Youkilis, of course, was what drew most of the attention. Pedroia seemed to attack Valentine’s managing style, referencing Valentine’s time away from Major League Baseball in Japan, and said, “That’s not the way we go about our stuff around here. He’ll figure that out.”

The comments had many people thinking that Pedroia was pushing back against Valentine’s leadership — and continuing a poor clubhouse culture that was supposedly the cause of the team’s September collapse the year before.

“Without question, it came out wrong,” said Pedroia, who defended Valentine many times after the initial comments and was one of his biggest allies on the Red Sox.

Pedroia said the rough season taught him many things as a player and as a leader.

“Looking back, I learned a ton from it,” Pedroia said Tuesday. “I mean, it’s awful that we played so bad, but it’s going to better me as a player going forward, and it’s going to better our organization going forward.”

That’s a message all Red Sox fans want to hear.

With the dismissals of Bobby Valentine and Ozzie Guillen from the Red Sox and Marlins, respectively, there's an undeniable trend in the sport in terms of hiring managers. No longer are the Billy Martin-like, outspoken and thoroughly controversial skipper en vogue. Rather, there's a clear movement towards "players' managers" who are as much psychologists as they are on-field decision makers.

Nonetheless, in an interview on Tuesday night with Bob Costas on his NBC Sports Network show Costas Tonight, Valentine said that he would very much like to manage again in the big leagues. Guillen has yet to weigh in on the matter, but, considering the brevity of his stint in South Beach, it wouldn't surprise anyone if he wanted another opportunity.

Whether they get their (third and fourth) chances is an entirely different debate.

That being said, during his interview Valentine very poignantly noted that, after the 2000 season with the Dodgers, it was almost universally speculated that Davey Johnson would never get a managerial gig in the big leagues again. This year, he's a strong candidate for Manager of the Year with the Nationals.

As we all know, baseball is a game of streaks and trends, and that isn't necessarily confined to the field. The types of player, methods of evaluation and general strategies of the sport tend to eb and flow, so it would make a certain amount of sense to, at least eventually, see the outspoken, controversial type of manager return to the field.

In that vein we ask you: Who will end up back in a dugout guiding an MLB team first? Valentine, Guillen, or have both worn out their welcome in the big leagues?

Will Bobby Valentine or Ozzie Guillen get an MLB managerial job first?

He so wanted to return to Major League Baseball that he may have agreed to hold the clipboard for a team that resembled a traveling circus or called the shots at a club better fit for a comedy show.

He got the Red Sox.

Boston's season was so wild and varied that it's hard to know which parts were true and what just needs to be put to bed for winter, waiting to see what sprouts out of the ground when spring comes.

When last year ended, it was Terry Francona's fault, then Theo Epstein's. Both went. This season, Kevin Youkilis was a problem, and Josh Beckett was at the end of some pointing fingers. Adrian Gonzalez even got some flak, and Carl Crawford was, of course, injured. They are all gone now, too.

The cries for Valentine's head intensified throughout the season, but if this year has taught Red Sox fans anything, it's that conclusions are maddeningly difficult to come to.

If Beckett and Gonzalez were a problem of any kind, how do you explain the lack of rejuvenation after they left, as Boston went 0-5 on the West Coast right after, being outscored 48-13? Bob McClure is done hanging his hat in the clubhouse, but the pitching did not become any better. The murmurings of clubhouse discord happen whether Francona or Valentine is filling out the lineup card.

The quick answer, of course, is that change takes time. The Red Sox were left shorthanded as they finished out the season, and a team can't be expected to rip off dozens of wins when several of its best players have just been flipped for prospects. The massive trade that will mark the Red Sox' direction going forward cannot be judged over the last 30 games. That would be both unfair and insane.

Still, Valentine was under fire all season, and he will only hear more now that the dreadful season has wrapped up and he has been sent on his way. For all his skills as a manager — and for whatever he did to keep the team above water as long as he did — he will be judged on whether he could pull bunnies out of hats down the homestretch and turn the likes of Pedro Ciriaco, Mauro Gomez, Jose Iglesias and their minor league friends into major league-changing producers. He couldn't, and the Red Sox challenged for the worst record in the American League. With some wins, Valentine could have made a good case for himself. With the losses, the other deficiencies stand out all the more.

But Valentine's tenure with the Red Sox can't be judged on the last few weeks of baseball, and there's a good case to be made that it shouldn't be judged on several stretches of this past season, either. If anything, Valentine has had to deal with the worst of worsts, with little chance to show the skills that have made him a good manager before.

The Red Sox may have been a poor place for Valentine to try to manage again, and whether the team is the right fit going forward is a good question, too. That's for Red Sox management to decide. But however Valentine's time in Boston turns out, this shouldn't be the end of a managing career for a man who has shown he still has something to bring if given the right opportunity.

As the Red Sox absorbed rough losses throughout September, Valentine showed considerably less fire and pizazz than he has throughout the season, when he was ready to quip and joke no matter what odd situation arose. He regained a little bit of the old Valentine magic as his ouster appeared imminent (biking, anyone?), but it was difficult for him to find the emotion and motivation he needed to stay alive this season as the Red Sox found new ways to get worse.

That fatigue reveals why this season has been so hard for Valentine, and so unreliable for showing whether Valentine can still be a marquee manager at the MLB level.

Valentine's greatest strengths lie in his charisma and positive nature, where he can rally a team of young players or jump into a new situation and start a turnaround. In Boston, he dealt with a lot of entrenched roles and scenarios, whether it be veteran players (no one's fault) or perceived miscommunication that left Valentine on his heels coming in. The Red Sox of the future may actually suit Valentine far better than the Red Sox of spring 2012 ever would, with young, moldable players coming up and new schemes needing to be deployed. Valentine is at his best when he can retool and use wackiness in his favor, not when he has an expensive machine that needs to be taken care of and fine-tuned.

The Valentine who has been effective in years past never really got a chance to pop out of his shell in this latest go-around, with Valentine so obviously treading carefully from his first minute with the Red Sox. Valentine had to spend just as much energy this season making sure not to make mistakes as he had trying something new. The fatigue he is showing on the job is not just the result of a rough season, but also of tough and unique demands. It's been easy to point fingers as the season has deteriorated, but whether Valentine reacted correctly or not, this much is obvious: The buoyant skipper never had a chance to start from a clean slate.

Valentine is under heavy scrutiny, with many thinking his fate is already determined. But his quest to manage should not be defined by a most unusual season in Boston. The year that left everyone shaking their heads shouldn't be a death knell for what Valentine can do as a manager.

He's been shaking his head just as much. But he's been fighting through it — and maybe finding enough tricks that he can expand the manager resume that was already well-stocked when his last ill-fated adventure began.

Editor's note: NESN.com is going to tell the story of the 2012 Red Sox in Bobby Valentine's words. Each game day, we will select a Valentine quote that sums up the day for the Red Sox.

The torture has ended.

With a 14-2 loss to the Yankees on Wednesday, the Red Sox finished the 2012 regular season with a record of 69-93 and the franchise's worst winning percentage (.425) since 1965.

It was a year that started with promise, only to plunge down to the bottom of the standings. For Bobby Valentine, the challenges proved to be much tougher than the smear campaigns that ended his stints in New York and Japan.

"It was trying," the Red Sox manager told reporters in New York. "I don't know how it could be more challenging than this season."

That narrative could also summarize Daisuke Matsuzaka's career. Six years ago, the Japanese hurler arrived in Boston as a highly touted rookie with an arsenal of pitches and received a hero's welcome. He was supposed to fortify a loaded rotation.

During the first two years, Matsuzaka lived up to the expectations, compiling a 33-15 record in that span. He finished fourth in the Rookie of the Year voting in 2007 and in the Cy Young voting in 2008.

After that, it all went downhill for Matsuzaka. Over the next four years in Boston, the 32-year-old was plagued by an array of injuries and inconsistency while posting a 17-22 record

"I didn't expect the six years to end the way it did end," Matsuzaka said through an interpreter. "It was really hard on me mentally for a while now. But there were some great memories — the first year winning the World Series was great. But I wasn't able to perform to my expectations after the first two years, so I'm really disappointed and I'm really apologetic that I wasn't able to perform to my expectations."

On Wednesday night, he finished his season — and likely his Red Sox career — with another wild outing. He lasted just 2 1/3 innings, surrendering six hits and five runs while only striking out two batters.

Despite the struggles, Matsuzaka reiterated his desire to return to the Red Sox and redeem himself. But like Valentine, both could be on their way out as Boston attempts to rebuild and reload.

"He was just like us, he was in a fight, the whole time," Cody Ross said of Valentine, "and he kept battling. He was great. Great to me personally, just a great man. Like I said, he had a tough, tough time, just like we all did. No. 1, not being healthy as a team, and not being able to put the guys up that he wanted, we'll see."

Whichever direction the organization goes, Valentine insisted he'd be at peace.

"My life will be fine," Valentine said.

Fortunately for the Red Sox, the torture on the diamond has ended. But the challenge of assembling a roster capable of winning a World Series championship in 2013 is merely beginning.

The first was failing to piece together Boston's bullpen quickly enough to start the season. But the second — and most scrutinized decision — was the Red Sox skipper's critical comments made about ex-player Kevin Youkilis in April.

Before Wednesday's season-finale against the Yankees, Valentine expressed regret for those two mistakes.

"I didn't expect that reaction," Valentine said, referring to the reaction from the Youkilis comments. "I wouldn't have made the Youkilis comment [and] I would have been more prepared for the bullpen situation at the beginning of the season that occurred."

Whether the moment of reflection is enough to save Valentine's job is currently unknown. But Valentine's clashes with players stemmed from the Youkilis comments, which had a negative effect in the clubhouse.

It reportedly led to a meeting in July, where the team organized a meeting with ownership and pleaded with them to fire Valentine. Aside from the Youkilis comments and the bullpen situation, the skipper didn't lament taking the managerial job.

"It's a great life experience," Valentine said. "That's what life is. It wasn't always an enjoyable experience but it's been great, one I'll look back on and I'm sure I've learned from."

Through it all, Valentine praised John Henry, Larry Lucchino and Tom Werner for their unwavering support.

"Ownership has been incredible," Valentine said. "I didn't know very much of any of the three guys but it seemed like when things got worse, one of them would always be there to say hang with 'em."

It remains to be seen if that backing will continue this offseason.

Have a question for Didier Morais? Send it to him via Twitter at @DidierMorais or send it here. He will pick a few questions to answer every week for his mailbag.

Ben Cherington

With skipper Bobby Valentine's future hanging in the
balance, the Red Sox general manager side-stepped all questions about the 62-year-old manager's
future until the season had been completed on Wednesday.

"I'm not going to talk about it," Cherington told reporters in New York. "We've said many times Bobby's the manager of the team through the
end of the year and we'll talk about it at the end of the season. That's what we'll
do."

Cherington, however, was aware of Valentine's belief that
his coaching staff had undermined him this season. While Cherington recognized
the discord, he resorted to simply respecting Valentine's opinion.

"He expressed his feeling, and that's just his
feeling," Cherington said. "I'm sorry he feels that way. It's hard
for me to comment on. I don't know of any example. That's his feeling. I'm not
in his office the whole time.

"I'm not in the clubhouse the whole time. I don't
know what exactly he's referring to, but he's got a right to his opinion and he
expressed it. If he feels that way, then I feel bad."

In the coming days, Valentine's future should be clear –
one way or the other. 

Have a question for Didier Morais? Send it to him via
Twitter at @DidierMorais
or send it here.
He will pick a few questions to answer every week for his mailbag.

During his weekly appearance on WEEI’s The Big Show on Wednesday, Bobby Valentine made comments about feeling undermined by members of his coaching staff on Wednesday.

Obviously, the media was going to bring up those comments during the manager’s pregame interview and also asked the Red Sox manager for his thoughts on the 2012 season.

The season was a disappointing one for Valentine, Red Sox players and fans, and while Valentine’s future with the Red Sox will be determined after Game 162 is played, it was certainly an interesting year to say the least.

To hear Bobby V’s press conference, watch the video above from Red Sox First Pitch.

He reiterated that he felt the staff wasn't on the same
page. Although Valentine declined to provide names, all indications point to underlying
friction with bench coach Tim Bogar, bullpen coach Gary Tuck and former
pitching coach Bob McClure.

From the get-go, Valentine admitted communication was
lacking between all parties.

"I just think there's an information flow that's
needed in any organizational structure, and it needs to flow directly,"
Valentine said Wednesday to reporters in New York. "This has been a work in progress to get things to flow in
a straight line chain of command type of flow, or even information-need flow.

"I don't know how to describe it other than to think
of telephones poles being set up down the street. When one of them goes down,
it's tough to get the flow. So you want to set it up so it works. And timely
fashion also is part of that communication."

Last offseason, Valentine never had time to embark on a
thorough search for his assistants. Given the fact he was hired in December,
the manager was allotted one month to make his hires.

But Valentine refused to use that as an excuse.

"I think the process was alright," Valentine
said of selecting his coaching staff. "It just, you know, it was late. It
was late, there were phone calls — it was a difficult process. It was fine, but
difficult."

"I had every opportunity to succeed and didn't."

Have a question for Didier Morais? Send it to him via Twitter
at @DidierMorais
or send it here. He will pick a few questions to answer every week for his mailbag.

He confirmed Wednesday what many had suspected — that he had problems with his coaching staff, thus making his job even more difficult than it already was.

Valentine was asked on WEEI on Wednesday afternoon whether or not he felt his coaching staff was loyal to him. 

"No," he quickly stated on The Big Show. "You asked me what I feel. That's what I feel."

He was then asked whether or not he felt undermined by his staff. The answer, again, came quickly. 

"Yes," he said, eventually adding that was "just what I feel."

Valentine revealed that he interviewed each member of his staff upon taking the job, but he said that he would obviously do things differently given another chance.

"I had the say. I interviewed everyone. Just bad decisions."

As manager, however, Valentine was left to try and make the frayed relationships work, all things considered.

"You work it," Valentine added. "I had to work through it all. It's just another thing that's part and parcel of the job and work through it. It's part of the job. That's my part of the job to try and make it all functional."

When asked, should he return next season would he employ the same coaching staff, Valentine had another quick answer.

"Some." 

However, the relationship between Valentine and general manager Ben Cherington was a pretty decent one, at least by comparison. Valentine yielded that there were disagreements between the two — which is par for the course for any such relationship — but things never got carried away.

"It's been a work in progress all year," Valentine reflected. "I think Ben had as tough of a year dealing with this roster situtation as any general manager will ever have. I think there's been a daily communication that has struggled through the situation and with all of the problems.

"We haven't had any arguments. He's my boss and he pointed some things out along the way that he might have disagreed with and I respected his opinion. I don't know how you judge these things. I think it's been very functional."

The veteran skipper was able to find some positives upon reflecting on his first season with the Red Sox.

"The job is, at the end of the day, is the record," he said. "The experience, I really enjoyed experiencing all the development of the players that weren't expected to be here. Look at [Pedro] Ciriaco, [Mike] Aviles, [Mauro] Gomez, [Jarrod Saltalamacchia] and you know, Daniel Nava, you know Felix Doubront and [Franklin] Morales and [Andrew] Miller, these guys are guys who people were looking at as kind off of the radar. I think they've established themselves as having a foothole in the major leagues. I've been proud to have had a part to watch that develop."

Editor's note: NESN.com is going to tell the story of the 2012 Red Sox in Bobby Valentine's words. Each game day, we will select a Valentine quote that sums up the day for the Red Sox.

At 9:55 p.m. ET, the Red Sox were three outs and a two-run lead away from victory over the Yankees.

At 11:18, the Red Sox fell victim to their 92nd loss of the season in the bottom of the 12th inning, courtesy of a walk-off single by Raul Ibanez off Andrew Miller that resulted in a 4-3 loss.

"He did a good job of going with it and the hole that was there," Miller said. "But shouldn't have been in that situation. Worst-case scenario that's a single, but I walked two guys to put a guy on second base and that cost us the game."

And it was Ibanez who originally spoiled Boston's prospects as spoilers in the ninth inning. With a baserunner aboard, Ibanez crushed Andrew Bailey's fastball into the right-field seats, collecting his 19th home run of the year.

The eventual loss dropped the Red Sox' record in extra-inning games to 2-10 on the season, but it also meant more than that. As a result of this loss — and Toronto's victory on Tuesday — the Red Sox were guaranteed to finish in last place in the American League East.

"We didn't start the season to finish fifth or sixth, fourth or third," Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine said. "I'd just like to say congratulations to the winning team. They battled hard and deserved to win."

Bailey and Miller's blemishes overshadowed a strong performance by Boston's bullpen. Aside from the pair's miscues, Rich Hill, Junichi Tazawa, Craig Breslow, Mark Melancon and Vicente Padilla each threw scoreless outings.

For Bailey, it marked his third blown save in 19 appearances. While the closer hopes for a chance to redeem himself in Wednesday's season finale, he admitted his failures would make for an agonizing offseason.

"I've let the team down a couple times," Bailey said. "It's my fault. There's no one else to blame. It's a mixture of not getting ahead of guys, making bad pitches when I've got to put people away. That's a situation where I've got to put people away, and I didn't.

"There's no reset button for me. For me, my numbers speak for themselves. Unfortunately, we have a long offseason. This game is what's going to keep me pushing forward to next year."

For Bailey and the Red Sox, there will be no shortage of errors to motivate.

Without Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury, Red Sox
manager Bobby Valentine came under fire for fielding a lineup comprised of mostly
minor leaguers. Pedroia's absence was obvious, considering he suffered a broken
left finger.

Valentine, however, never explained Ellsbury's situation,
especially after he played in back-to-back games against the Orioles. A day
later, Valentine defended his decision to sit Ellsbury in favor of outfielder
Che-Hsuan Lin.

"I thought I was playing the team that was going to
give us a good chance to win," Valentine said. "It's a big center
field. Lin is a very good defensive player. Ells really hasn't hit that well
against left-handers and Lin got two hits last night and the first time up he
really walked but they called him out on a high 3-2 curveball so he really
would have been on base three times."

In essence, Valentine called Ellsbury a platoon player –
a far cry from being last year's AL MVP runner-up.
The Red Sox skipper cited Yankees starter CC Sabathia's arsenal for the
decision.

"CC was pitching and I saw [Ellsbury] face [Joe
Saunders] a couple of nights before with his breaking ball and I thought it was
a situation where a right-hander might be able to do better," Valentine
said. "And Lin got half of our hits so maybe that hunch was OK."

The explanation doesn't match up with Ellsbury's
season-long numbers. This season, the 29-year-old is hitting .292 against
lefties compared to his .262 batting average against right-handers. For
Ellsbury's career, he's hitting .298 against southpaws.

But Valentine could be covering up for an unknown injury.
Either way, Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia believed that Ellsbury didn't
need to elaborate about his situation to anyone.

"He's been beat up, man," Pedroia said.
"He's had his share of injuries this year. This year has been tough on a
lot of guys. He doesn't have to answer anything."

Editor's note: NESN.com is going to tell the story of the 2012 Red Sox in Bobby Valentine's words. Each game day, we will select a Valentine quote that sums up the day for the Red Sox.

The Red Sox are fielding weaker lineups by the day.

With Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury out, Red Sox manager
Bobby Valentine was forced to start six players — Pedro Ciriaco, Mauro Gomez,
Jose Iglesias, Daniel Nava, Che-Hsuan Lin and Ryan Lavarnway — who began the
season in Triple-A Pawtucket.

That's not counting Danny Valencia, who spent most of the
season shuffling from the majors to the minors before getting dealt to the Red
Sox last month.

It was a depleted lineup, far from the imposing squads the
Red Sox are accustomed to fielding against the Yankees. And starter CC
Sabathia capitalized on Boston's weakness in the 10-2 win, fanning seven
batters through eight innings.

"You just play the cards that you have," Valentine said. "That's
what we have right now."

The team's lone weapon, Clay Buchholz, ran out of gas in Monday's start. He only lasted 1 2/3 innings, having surrendered eight runs, six hits — three home runs — as well as two walks in his brief appearance.

In his sixth season with the Red Sox, Buchholz exceeded his career highs for innings (173 2/3 in 2010), tallying 189 1/3 frames in 29 starts. But after suffering his eighth loss of the season, Buchholz denied that fatigue hindered his performance.

"I felt as good today as I felt all year, the second half of the season," Buchholz said. "The ball was going out fine. It's tough whenever you leave pitches out of the middle of the plate and every one of them gets hit. That's what this team is known for. They hit mistakes. They did that [Monday]."

On the flipside, the Red Sox offense had little to hang their hats on. Only Daniel Nava managed to take advantage of a Sabathia mistake, launching a home run to right field in the fourth inning.

But that's what Boston's lineup has boiled down to — leaning on their players from
Pawtucket.

"The season as a whole, everybody's got to learn from it," Buchholz said. "I don't think anybody in this clubhouse is happy about the position we're in right now. We've got a lot of key guys that have been hurt throughout the season for an extended period of time, and that takes its toll.

"We just haven't been the standard now that everybody expects from us. You've got
to learn from it. I hope it leaves a bad taste in everybody's mouth and comes to spring training ready to go."

At this point, all the focus is on the future.

Editor's
note: NESN.com is going to tell the story of the 2012 Red Sox in Bobby
Valentine's words. Each game day, we will select a Valentine quote that sums up
the day for the Red Sox.

For the first time since 1966, the Red Sox have tallied a
90-loss season.

It's the fourth time in the last 80 years that Boston has
reached the plateau. And on Sunday afternoon, the Red Sox suffered defeat No. 90 with
another forgettable performance from pitcher Zach Stewart.

As a result of the defeat, the Red Sox have dropped five
straight games, including nine of their last ten. From Bobby Valentine's
perspective, this one was as painful as all the other 'L's' before him.

"Every
loss hurts — all 90 of them," Valentine told reporters in Baltimore.

Making his second start of the season for the Red Sox,
Stewart –– who came in the Kevin Youkilis trade –– struggled from the get-go, giving up
a leadoff home run to Baltimore's Nate McLouth.

Shortly thereafter, Stewart dug himself into a deeper hole,
surrendering three singles and nailing Adam Jones with a pitch. Stewart
served up one more shot to J.J. Hardy in the third inning before getting pulled
for Clayton Mortensen.

"Those guys are on the gas pedal," Stewart told
reporters. "They had their foot on our throat and pressed down. I didn't
feel like I was very consistent. They're good and showed what they can do. Just
trying to do damage control and keep it at that score, but I didn’t do that.

"For the most part, I felt like my slider and changeup
were OK. For the most part, it was mostly my fastball that was
inconsistent."

In 5 2/3 innings of work for the Red Sox this season,
Stewart has been lackluster, surrendering 14 earned runs –– via four long balls
–– and just three strikeouts. The hurler recognized he needed to improve over
the offseason.

"Just going to take all the mistakes — there were a
lot of them — and work from there," Stewart said. "I felt like my
last starts in Pawtucket were good and I'm going to build on that."

The
lone positive from the loss is the Red Sox officially clinched a top-10 draft
pick for next year's draft. It's slated to be their highest spot in the draft
since 1993, when the organization selected outfielder Trot Nixon.

Many predicted instant combustion. Most figured it would be a rocky season at best. Some thought Valentine could find success as a manager again — if he could somehow woo the highly paid stars who made up the team.

Valentine certainly did a bit of due diligence before the season, reaching out to different players, including slugger David Ortiz. But when it came to the volatile Josh Beckett, Valentine now admits that maybe he didn't do enough — after being told quite clearly that Beckett was the key to the Boston roster's heart.

Former New York Mets pitcher Al Leiter, now a broadcaster with the Yankees, apparently told Valentine to work hard on his relationship with Beckett early on.

"I love Al Leiter, and I have for a long time," Valentine said during a radio interview on the Michael Kay Show on Friday. "… If I listened to him on some advice he gave me over the winter, I'd probably have been better off this year."

Valentine didn't go into details about that advice, but when he was done with his turn on Kay's show, Leiter — whose presence in the studio was what caused Valentine's original comment — was happy to fill everyone in.

"The advice was that he had to make sure that he had Josh Beckett," Leiter said.

Leiter said it was important for Beckett to be on "Bobby's side" going into the season, "because Josh could be difficult."

Beckett and Valentine were already somewhat at odds because Valentine had criticized Beckett while an analyst for ESPN, calling out the length of time it took Beckett to throw his pitches. Leiter said Valentine went to see Beckett in Houston in the offseason to try to get the two on the same page.

Leiter wasn't convinced, however, that it ever happened, considering the chemistry issues the team dealt with all season, leading to a deal where Beckett was happily traded to Los Angeles.

"Josh could be difficult, and he was, and it was a divisive kind of scenario, and I don't know if [Valentine] … really got it done," Leiter said.

After a season where Valentine has spent most of his time patching over miscues or trying to make up for not laying the proper groundwork, here's guessing that Leiter's advice will be fully received next time.