To answer the question posed to me earlier, truthfully I had no idea what to expect of this team this year. Last year, even modified, was appalling. I have watched some bad Red sox teams, and stayed with it. Last year was unwatchable. essentially the last month plus they were trying to lose, and better off for doing it. They were pitching guys with very little chance of winning the game. However, honestly, I checked out for chunks of the end of the season, but I dont recall them playing as many obscenely horrible and offensive games as they have in the last month. Last years team had way less talent than this years, but I dont recall watching many games and saying this is an embarrassment to the way that baseball should be played. I dont recall holding my breath on any ball hit to the left side of the infield. I dont recall having a first baseman who looks like he was introduced to a glove about 30 seconds prior. I dont recall having a catcher, who in his mind thinks he is Johnny Bench, but the only bench associated with him, should be the one should be stapled to next to Cora. I dont recall complete inattention to opponents stealing bases. I dont recall a constant and repetitive disregard for how many outs there are in an inning. I dont recall batters just giving bats away with two string swings, on pitches way outside the zone. I dont recall so many runners refusing to run out a ground ball to first. I dont recall a defensive interference on a winning run in a key game. I dont recall a player pumping his fist when tagging a guy out down 8-1 in the 8th inning. This team started out phenomenally and surely played above expectations. I thought that the regression would come from the pitching staff, as the peripheral numbers did not support the continued good results from certainly Perez, Richards, and to a bit of a lesser extent Pivetta. I liked him better than the other two, but mainly because he had no previous sustained success in MLB, and had been acquired for a very modest return. I was a partially correct, but mostly wrong.
Losing well played games, and having this August swoon certainly would have bothered me. I generally dont take Red sox losing well, no matter what the form. Last years team stunk, so I didnt expect anything from them. This team played 4 months of .600+ ball, which included mostly not shooting themselves in the foot, multiple times per night. The way this team has self destructed, without change for over a month, has what has led to such dissatisfaction. This team showed four straight months that they were above this. How does a team almost across the board show 4 months of solid complimentary baseball, and then one solid month of an inability to do basic baseball related activities. This isnt the pitching staff hitting a slump, and all of a sudden giving up a ton of gopher balls. This isnt the hitters, all going in a team wide slump. Most all of this feels self inflicted. That is why I lay a lot of this at the leadership. Night after night of careless mistakes, requires the leader to take charge, make changes, make people uncomfortable. Change the order, pull guys for running on fly balls to the outfield with one out. I know you cant show veteran players up, but when you lose 2/3 games for a month in a pennant race, the way they have, you have to go outside the norm. If Cora sat Vazquez for a few nights, would it signal to the other veterans, that if Cora will do that to him, then I need to be locked in, because I could be next? Who knows, I know one thing, we wont know, because apparently it isnt going to happen.
If this season flames out short of the playoffs, I sense a whisper campaign from the very public relations conscious owners who will try to lay the meltdown at the hands of Covid. What could we do, we didnt expect three weeks of Munoz? It wasnt out plan for Arrauz to get 100 at bats in the biggest 4 week stretch of the season. We had no intention of Stephen Gonzalves or Brad Peacock to be pitching critical innings, but Covid. This isnt about Covid. The end may be, but the train was well down the tracks with your regular squad before Covid overran your roster. Pre-Covid the Sox did everything wrong to compromise the team to the point of collapse. Covid was the cold that pushed the team from Critical condition to the morgue.