Massarotti: Impressive Trip For Red Sox, But They're Still Blowing Too Many Games Late
BOSTON (CBS) -- Win or lose, the Red Sox will return from Florida late tonight with an impressive won-lost record on a four-city, 11-game road trip that was supposed to test their mettle. The Sox indisputably have passed. And yet, because baseball is baseball and there is always something to worry about, something should be gnawing at you at least a little.
The Red Sox are still blowing too many games in the late innings.
With last night's 4-3 defeat to the Tampa Bay Rays, Red Sox relievers recorded their 22nd loss of the season, tied for second most in the American League. That is never good. And as well as the Sox have been playing lately – and they have been playing well, no doubt – a closer inspection of the team's performance cannot help but make you wonder whether the Sox have merely masked a problem that has plagued them all year.
To wit: in their last 16 games, the Sox are 11-5. That's a .688 winning percentage that's good in any league. But of the Red Sox' five defeats during that span, only one – Sunday's 10-5 loss to Detroit – was devoid of any real frustration.
Think about it. On Aug. 10 and 11, the Sox suffered 9-4 and 4-2 losses to the New York Yankees at Fenway Park. They led the first of those by a 4-1 score in the seventh inning, the second by a 2-1 score in the eighth. Last Thursday, the Sox led the Tigers by a 3-1 score in the eighth when manager John Farrell curiously gave the ball to the struggling Junichi Tazawa, and, well, we all know what happened after that. There is really no point in reliving it.
As for last night, Farrell again found himself in the middle of things. Starter Rick Porcello – the most valuable starter on the Boston staff this year – was at 105 pitches when Farrell sent him back out for the eighth. (It should be noted that Porcello's three previous innings featured a total of 25 pitches – seven in the fifth, nine each in the sixth and seventh). Porcello gave up a game-tying, solo home run to Evan Longoria on his eighth pitch of the inning and 113th of the night, locking the game at 3.
Two innings later, heath Hembree got himself into trouble and then failed to catch the simplest of flips while covering first, and the Red Sox had crumbled to a 4-3 defeat.
So whom do we blame for this one? Porcello, who has been nails all year? Farrell, who then stayed with Porcello until he reached 123 pitches? Hembree, who botched the most routine of plays? In the end, it might not really matter. What matters is that, with the Red Sox, someone is almost always making a big mistake late that has cost them too many games.
Was this a crushing, season-altering defeat? No. The Sox are still tied for first place in the American League East. They have won their share of close games lately, too. And they have bounced back from these kinds of losses often. But as the Red Sox inch toward the finish line in the most exciting, entertaining and competitive Boston baseball season in three years, we cannot help but wonder:
As the Red Sox sit tied with the Toronto Blue Jays atop the American League East, shouldn't they actually be ahead?
