We can dissect a dropped third strike and second guess a bullpen decision, but the bottom line from this Red Sox weekend requires only surface-level analysis:
“We got swept by the Yankees and we’re in the second wild card,” manager Alex Cora said. “We played some competitive games, but we didn’t get the job done. So, very simple.”
Indeed, a weekend of unmistakable opportunity — three games against the team closest to them in the standings — yielded a worst-case result. The Red Sox gave themselves no room to breathe. Instead of putting a rival away, they kept four teams in play.
But Cora is notoriously glass-half-full, and so even in his bare-bones assessment, he acknowledged one silver lining: the Red Sox are still in a playoff position. In that sense, they control their own destiny. Win out, and they’ll play the wild-card game one way or another.
Left unsaid is another obvious but unspeakable truth: the Red Sox’s final week should be relatively easy. Playing on the road is the only downside, but that’s a small price to pay for getting to finish the season against the Orioles and Nationals. The Orioles are notoriously bad — their awfulness well established, especially against the Red Sox — but the Nationals have been just as poor in the second half. Those two teams literally are tied for the fewest wins in baseball since the All-Star break. It’s hard to ask for better late-season matchups than that, even if the Red Sox themselves would be loath to admit it for fear of angering the Baseball Gods.
