Sox hit another jackpot
“House Money?” Nope.
The Red Sox are now dealing in Bitcoin.
To the moon!
Those who sold this team short in August have nothing but a series of poorly aged tweets to show for their investments. Always bet on “red” in 2021.
Turns out, “Nirvana, Joy and Bliss” are not just dancers at a nightclub, either. Those sentiments flowed with Budweiser and champagne after the Red Sox dispatched the 100-win Tampa Bay Rays in the ALDS with back-to-back walk-off victories at frenzied Fenway Park.
It was Boston’s most passionate sports celebration since the Bruins reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2019.
“Thanks, Tuukka,” in my best Debbie Downer voice.
To quote the loquacious Kevin Garnett, “anything is possible!” these days as far as the Red Sox are concerned.
The Red Sox hit jackpots all spring and into the summer. They sent five players to the All-Star Game. (Has anyone seen Matt Barnes lately?) But they rolled a seven at the trade deadline. From that moment, at 4 p.m. July 30, to the close of the regular season, Boston lost 9.5 games to the Rays and 8 games to the Yankees in the standings.
New York and Tampa Bay clearly won the Battle of Deadline Junction. Thankfully, these metaphorical baseball skirmishes are settled in the chill of October and not during the swelter of August. It was 63 degrees and clear when Eduardo Rodriguez threw the first of his 78 pitches Monday night.
That came six days after Boston’s wild card win. The Red Sox neatly ejected the Yankees from the VIP lounge like members of an unruly bachelor party whose groom got too handsy with the help.
With all due respect to Bucky F. Dent, his time, like that of the VCR, Evening Globe and AM radio, has passed. Dent’s fabled home run – which has aired on ESPN 10.5 million times — was hit 43 years ago. No one under 50 has an in-depth memory of it happening in real time.
The Red Sox run of postseason dominance over the Yankees is now 17 years old. No narrative is safe.
The Rays posed a real challenge. Could Tampa Bay carry its success into the postseason?
No dice.
Instead of extending Champ Bay’s dominance, these Rays became the first major-league team in Tampa Bay not to win a league or overall championship since Tom Brady signed with the Bucs in March 2020.
That AL East title turned out to be a worthless casino chit in the postseason.
The Rays have been counting cards for years. But Kevin Cash decided to hit on 19 in the ALDS. That was too much even for the Red Sox. Boston delivered a cattle prod to the midsection and Tampa Bay was dragged off the betting floor and out the front door — kicking and screaming about groundrule doubles — as an example to all.
The highest IQ in baseball ops cannot throw a pitch. And when you use 147 different mediocre pitchers instead of 2 or 3 really good ones, you’re bound to give up a two-run homer in the 13th inning to Carlton Vazquez and then falter in the bottom of the ninth amid a bonkers full house at Fenway Park within a 25hour span.
Alex Cora is wise enough to know without using trash cans or his fabled Apple Watch that his best starters will need to deliver at least 5 innings nightly for his bullpen to survive two potential seven-game series.
We liked the Red Sox to make the playoffs at +275 in March and crush their season-win total of 80.5. The doubt disseminated during those Bad Dog Days of Summer was as much an indictment of our self-confidence as it was a critique of Chaim Bloom and the squad he assembled with spare parts from across Major League Baseball.
If the Red Sox win the World Series, Bill Belichick could become the “Chaim Bloom of the Patriots.” Of course, Bloom wasn’t given an extra $163 million to blow on free-agent flops like Nelson Agholor, Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith. Bloom assembled this team on the baseball cheap. His first order of substance from ownership was to deal Mookie Betts and get something of value in return.
Speaking of Betts. How about a World Series matchup featuring the Red Sox against Mookie and the Dodgers? Or what about Mike Yastrzemski and the San Francisco Giants coming to Fenway Park for the Fall Classic?
The elder Yaz is a suremoney bet to throw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 3 and be long gone by the top of the first.
The most surprising event in all of this was a real-life appearance of media magnate, soccer baron and Red Sox chief owner John W. Henry. The aloof bespectacled billionaire emerged from his lair Monday night to meet the press for the first time in 20 months and pile praise upon those running his baseball subsidiary.
We don’t know if Punxsutawney John saw his own shadow.
“We sort of felt all year we were ahead of schedule,” Henry said. “These guys just kept picking each other up. Wherever we might have had flaws, others made up for it. It was really remarkable.”
Henry’s Red Sox have won four rings and are playing in their seventh ALCS since he bought the franchise. The Red Sox are 12-3 in their past 15 ALCS games played against teams not named the Tampa Bay Rays. And the Red Sox have not lost an ALCS to a team outside the AL East since 1990 when Tony LaRussa managed closer Dennis Eckersley and the Oakland A’s to a four-game sweep.
Henry is all in on liking the Red Sox as World Series contenders.
“I do,” said Henry, who made his early millions trading commodities, options, futures and financial derivatives. “We’ll find out. Let’s find out.”
And after earning “House Money” by wiping out the Yankees and Rays, Henry’s Red Sox are now poised to corner baseball’s allegorical crypto-currency market.
Go long.