Home / / It was a great race, but … It feels like the red sox blew it a bit in ALCS – CBS Boston

It was a great race, but … It feels like the red sox blew it a bit in ALCS – CBS Boston

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By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston

BOSTON (CBS) – The Red Sox were much more successful in 2021 than anyone could have imagined or expected they would be. The also kind of blew it in ALCS.

Both things can be true. And they are.

After the Boston bats became silent for the third game in a row, the Red Sox’s season is now over. Just four days removed from a complete and total trouble at Fenway Park in Game 3, the Red Sox quickly let their 2-1 Series lead and their World Series dreams evaporate.

Astros obviously deserve a healthy share of the credit for making that happen. They have been the class in the American League for five years, they led the MLB in scores and stroke averages, and they had the fourth best team ERA in the American League this season. Beating them would obviously be a big challenge. There would be no shame in losing to them in a hard fought series.

But the long-standing disappointment in Boston after this season does not come from not beating the Astros. It comes from not even competing with them in the last three games.

While Boston pitching held up reasonably well in seven innings in Game 4, five innings in Game 5 and in eight innings in Game 6, the offense disappeared completely.

After Xander Bogaerts launched a two-run homer in the first inning of Game 4, the Red Sox had scored 26 runs in the first 27 innings of the series.

It’s 26 runs, 27 innings.

They scored one ran in the 26 innings that followed.

It is clear that a pace in a race per. Inning would never be sustainable. But to go to the very opposite end of the spectrum, to give away outs and innings with non-competitive bat mice, to chase lanes well out of the zone, not to turn away from the shift and pretty much lose track of everything that brought them success in games 2 and 3? Much of it could have been avoided.

The offensive miseries, however, are quite obvious. Two other critical flaws in this series make it feel like a lost opportunity for Boston’s baseball team.

The first: Game 4, at the top of the eighth, the Red Sox leading 2-1, Garrett Whitlock on for his second inning of relief. The rookie relief has been a revelation for Boston all year, but his first pitch for Jose Altuve – a homemade monster after the season – was direct in Altuve’s wheelhouse:

Garrett Whitlock to Jose Altuve (Baseball Savant screenshot)

Altuve did not miss one:

The Red Sox obviously got a hard break at the top of the ninth when Laz Diaz’s alternative battle zone deprived Nathan Eovaldi of what should have been the strike at the end, but one pitch to Altuve in one moment really changed everything about that game – and in return the series.

The second mistake was not a physical but a misunderstood belief. When manager Alex Cora got five runs with a one-run ball out of Chris Sale, he should have known he had received a gift from the baseball gods. This is not the Cy Young version of Sale – not right now, 12 starts in his homecoming from the Tommy John operation. This Chris Sale may still have the guts and nap to do what he did in the fourth inning of Game 5, but he just does not have the means to get through six innings against a potent lineup. (He could barely get through five innings twice against the Orioles in September, and he lasted just 2.1 innings in the final of the regular season to be won.)

But instead of treating the five-inning outing like a winning lottery, Cora played with fire, pushing luck and sending what he thought was his ace back to the mound for the sixth. A Kyle Schwarber error did not help, but Sale gave up a double to Yordan Alvarez — who had already homerated and ruled out the left wing, and a 1-0 deficit extended to a 3-0 deficit. Sale had to come out of the match and the Astros led 6-0 shortly after.

From a single race with a fired Fenway behind him, to a 6-0 deficit and a stunning lack of energy for the Red Sox. It happened fast and they never recovered.

With baseball, no theory can ever be known. But when Tanner Houck effectively put up his first two innings in Game 6, it still feels like he could have got the Red Sox into the late innings of Game 5.

Of course (of course!) And it did not. Rafael Devers hit a solo homer with the Red Sox trailing 7-0 in the seventh in Game 5, the only run of the entire game.

The most significant game in Game 5, according to winner probability, came at the bottom of the fifth inning. With the Red Sox trailing 1-0, Hunter Renfroe stepped onto the plate with two on and no off. He came in front in the count 2-0.

Then he founded a 6-4-3 double play. (Renfroe beat .063 in ALCS.)

It somehow got worse in game 6.

Facing elimination and facing a pitcher they destroyed just six days before, the Red Sox mustered only two hits in Game 6. Two hits. No races. After Eovaldi dug deep to knock himself out of a jam with three strikeouts in the fourth inning, the Red Sox followed it up with two terrible batsmen from Christian Arroyo (his another such at-bat of the night) and Renfroe.

The Red Sox went 0-on-4 with runners in scoring position that matched their numbers from game 5. From games 4-6, Red Sox hitters went 0-on-17 with runners in scoring position. The Astros went 12-on-32 with runners in scoring position in the same matches.

In both of the Red Sox ‘last two losses, they failed to get emotional boost from gutsy starting pitching performances, allowing Houston to eventually pull away.

Nathan Eovaldi in Game 6, Chris Sale in Game 5 (Photos by Billie Weiss / Boston Red Sox / Getty Images)

The season really ended with knocking them out, throwing them out with doubles in the seventh inning of Game 6.

But then again … the fact that Travis Shaw — who was dropped by the Brewers in August after retraining in Triple-A — was bat in the crucial situation shows that the Red Sox’s list was not quite at championship level. This was a game that featured Shaw, Danny Santana and Bobby Dalbec razor-sharp performances. It was a team that leaned heavily on Jose Iglesias (released by Angeles in September) just to make the playoffs at all. It was a team that, even though the Game 5 homer for Altuve had not been served on a platter, did not want a genuine closer in to finish the game on the ninth. They did not have a real first baseman or a real leadoff hitter, for that matter.

Asking this team to win a championship would probably be unfair. Asking them to beat the Astros can also be a little too much.

But does Red Red ask to at least compete against a team they had scored 25-13 through three games? Do you expect more offense against an exhausted pitching staff who lacked his ace and had an overworked bullpen through four fights? It’s not too much.

The Red Sox may not have been good enough from top to bottom to beat the Astros. But they was good enough to compete with them. During the last 27 innings, they could not show it.

You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.

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