Flawed Sox find way to get it done
Took all 162 games to clinch playoff spot
It’s hard to remember a more inconsistent, undisciplined and unfocused baseball team making a run to the playoffs than the 2021 Red Sox.
Alas, they got the job done. Despite a wild ending that saw the Red Sox have to overcome a four-run deficit to avoid a one-game playoff against the pesky Blue Jays, the Sox found a way to knock off the Nationals, 7-5, on Sunday to punch their ticket to the American League Wild Card Game on Tuesday, when they’ll host the Yankees at Fenway Park.
The Sox were a flawed-yet-resilient group from April through October, and it was no different in Game No. 162.
Where was Chris Sale on Sunday? He struck out the side in the first inning and tallied seven strikeouts in 2 1/3 innings of work, but was pulled after just 62 pitches because he couldn’t throw strikes and departed with a tworun deficit.
“Chris wasn’t sharp and I think he came off his mechanics toward the end,” manager Alex Cora said.
Where was J.D. Martinez? He evidently wasn’t paying attention as he took the field to play defense in the fifth inning and stumbled over the bag at second base, spraining his left ankle in the process. He was removed the next inning and it was Jose Iglesias who became the designated hitter out of the cleanup spot the rest of the game.
“He stepped on the bag and he twisted his ankle,” Cora said. “I don’t know (if he’ll play Tuesday).”
Alex Verdugo, too, looked lost in outer space after he made a terrible turn around first base on a fourth-inning single, got caught in a rundown and thrown out trying to scurry back to first base. At least Verdugo redeemed himself with a two-run, game-tying double in the seventh.
“I think today was crazy,” because of the start times, Verdugo said. “I was scoreboard-watching … I was checking on Toronto, checking in on the Yankees. But at the end of the day, we knew we had a job to do.”
The Blue Jays won first, putting pressure on the Red Sox to win or meet a Toronto team that has outscored them 110-81 on the year, despite going just 9-10 vs. the Red Sox in those games.
Then the Yankees won, securing their spot in the Wild Card game on Tuesday, and forcing the Red Sox to win in order to meet them there.
Cora was scoreboard-watching, too, and trying to decide how aggressive he wanted to be with this bullpen.
As the Sox clawed back against a lastplace Nationals team that was busy celebrating a pair of players likely to retire, Alex Avila and Ryan Zimmerman, and a rookie starting pitcher making his big league debut, Cora put his foot on the gas and burned both Eduardo Rodriguez and Nick Pivetta for crucial one-inning stints.
It was anything but smooth. Four of the five pitchers who began the year in the starting rotation — Rodriguez, Pivetta, Garrett Richards and Martin Perez — pitched on Sunday, a preview of what’s to come.
There are no bullpen roles. There is no clear starting lineup. And there is no consistent plan of offensive attack.
There are just some really good players doing some impressive things at timely moments, and enough of them to overcome a whole lot of untimely ones.
Put it all together and it was arguably the most bizarre season by the Boston baseball team since the Bobby Valentine circus of 2012.
“I think at the beginning of the year everybody counted us out,” Verdugo said “Even at the half, everyone was kind of saying, ‘It’s a fluke. They played well. Whatever. Blah, blah, blah.’ But we like the guys in our clubhouse. We know what kind of offense we have.”
Expectations were modest in February, when the common consensus was that the Red Sox would be the third- or fourth-best team in the American League East. In a sense, they were. It just so happened that the four best teams in the AL East each won at least 90 games.
The Sox finished 92-70, eight games behind the 100-win Rays, tied with the Yankees and just one game ahead of the Blue Jays.
The division was either particularly strong or the rest of the American League particularly weak, but we won’t find out until the American League Championship Series two weeks from now. The winner of the Sox and Yankees will travel to Tampa on Thursday to begin the Division Series vs. the Rays, and the winner of that series will play the winner of the White Sox and Astros’ Division Series.
Neither the Sox nor the Yanks are playing their best baseball of the season. Both are beat up. But they’ve both rested their aces to ensure Nathan Eovaldi and Gerritt Cole will get a rematch of last Friday’s game at Fenway.
“Nobody believed in us at the beginning of the season,” Rafael Devers said. “Nobody believed in us halfway through the season. We knew we had to battle.”