There are only three games left at Fenway Park, a season-ending weekend series with New York that begins one week from Friday night. The Yankees will be tuning up for their 15th playoff appearance in 16 years, while the Sox will be packing up their bags and getting ready to head home following the afternoon game on Oct. 4.
Over the winter, we’ll be able to look back on plenty of games and wonder “what if?” There were blown games against the Yankees and Rays that really could’ve changed the course of this season for Boston.
That said, the Sox still could’ve made this interesting. If only they would have been able to win a few games during this penultimate homestand of the season.
The hope was always that the Rays would run the table against the Yankees over the course of these final two weeks, or vice-versa. That would give the Sox a fighting chance to catch the team ahead of them as it fell back to the pack.
And the Yankees actually helped, taking the first two games of the series in New York this week. This, after the Rays lost two of three to the Angels over the weekend. Tampa Bay had dropped four out of five, leaving the door at least somewhat ajar for a Sox miracle finish.
Instead, the Sox dropped four out of five games themselves, giving up 28 runs in those five games against two teams a combined 46 1/2 games out of first place in the division going into play last night.
Think about that for a minute. Had the Sox been able to simply win their series with Toronto, and taken one of the first two games against Baltimore, they would’ve taken the field last night 4 1/2 games out of a playoff spot. Still a daunting task with 11 games remaining in the season, but a heck of a lot better than the 6 1/2 they were facing going into game three of the series with the Orioles.
And so a long, frustrating season will wind down over the next week and a half. The Sox will head off to the Bronx and Chicago for the final road trip of the year before returning home for those final three games. There are a few milestones to watch for — Jon Lester looking for his first 20-win season, Adrian Beltre and David Ortiz closing in on 100 RBIs — but there will be no breathless playoff chase this season.
There will be plenty of time to rehash what went wrong this season. There is no lack of low points or high blood pressure points to look back on. But remember this: even at the end of the line, even after all the missed opportunities, the Sox could have made it interesting with a better homestand over the past six nights.
