Quicker Than A
Chris O’Meara/Associated Press
Tonight was not a referendum on the 2011 Boston Red Sox. They lost an eight-game lead in the AL Wild Card standings because, in September, their good pitchers pitched bad, and their not-so-good pitchers pitched worse. You can maybe lay some blame at the feet of GM Theo Epstein, especially when it comes to the increasingly specious contract he signed John Lackey to. But, going into the season, the Red Sox had Lackey penciled in as their 4th of 6 possible starters (assuming you include Old Man Wakefield in the mix). That Dice-K pitched as poorly as fans feared Dice-K could pitch wasn’t much of a surprise; that Clay Buchholz came up lame and missed most of the season, unfortunately, was. Couple that with Lackey’s increasing ineffectiveness, Wakefield pitching as poorly as you’d expect a 45-year-old soft-tossing junkballer that wasn’t Jamie Moyer, and that supposed depth went poof. To paper over all that, the Red Sox would’ve needed the very-very-good Erik Bedard that netted the Orioles Adam Jones & more. And maybe the Doug Fister that did his best Doyle Alexander impression for the Tigers. There was Daniel Bard’s stretch-drive collapse, Kevin Youkilis hobbling all over the place, lots more Matt Albers than recommended, and Papelbon’s failure this series, and some of the worst-timed errors imaginable. But shit happens. Using this historical and confounding collapse as an excuse to start up some ridiculous campaign to run Theo Epstein or Terry Francona out of town because they haven’t won a World Series in over four years is the sort of thing that earns Boston fans the rash of shit they usually get, and them some. And, like I said, tonight wasn’t about the Red Sox.
Tonight was about the Tampa Bay Rays, a perennial underdog that way too many figured would have no shot at contending for a post-season spot with Carl Crawford. That Crawford left Tampa & signed with a division rival made that somewhat suspect assumption seem that much more obvious, to those already leaning in that direction. Never mind that the Rays won 2 of the last 3 AL East titles, and were actually in the World Series in 2008 with a not-dissimilar team to what they had this year. In my mind — and the minds of a lot of smart folk — this year’s team, with Jeremy Hellickson getting a full year in the rotation, and Matt Joyce finally getting a chance to play all the time in the outfield, was better than that World Series team. If you didn’t pay attention to their bullpen, that is. You tell folks in April that the Rays would be relying on Kyle Farnsworth to close out games for them as they made a late-season run at the playoffs, and they’d accuse you of making with the not-so-funny funnies. But though Professor Farnsworth & Joel Peralta were the only consistent relievers the team featured all year, the excellence of their starting staff more than made up for that. James Shields put last year’s debacle well into the rear view, and formed (with David Price and the aforementioned Hellickson) possibly the best 1-2-3 starter combo in the American League. It’s definitely the best of the four AL playoff teams. Combine that with Jeff Neimann’s solid season, and Wade Davis’ acceptable cromulence (plus some help from farmhand Alex Cobb and a cameo by 2012 ROY hopeful Matt Moore), and they had nothing to worry about on the run-prevention side of the ball.
Offensively, though, there were problems. The biggest being the month-long absence of Evan Longoria. There was also the early retirement of Manny Ramirez — a perfect on-the-cheap source of power and on-base prowess quickly turning into a sunk cost — and Johnny Damon’s horrendous early start and BJ Upton’s lack of anything and the question marks at shortstop and first base. Shortstop’s still not really fixed yet — the team turned to Sean Rodriguez, AKA the guy they got for Scott Kazmir, down the stretch — but the first base problem was solved by former prospect Casey Kotchmann and his .377 OBP. It was assumed that Desmond Jennings would be able to replace Carl Crawford without any trouble, which he did with aplomb when first brought up mid-season, but no one expected the light-hitting Sam Fuld to be the talk of the town (and the New York Times!) that first month of the season. But that’s the way the Rays managed to turn what was a seemingly insurmountable deficit into a playoff spot, by getting contributions from every possible corner, and that doesn’t include Ben Zobrist’s irreplaceable utility. Fuld’s hot start segued into Matt Joyce’s power surge, which lead into Jennings’ blazing-hot arrival, which dovetailed nicely into Bossman Junior rediscovering the stroke that carried the Rays during their 2008 playoff run and Longoria’s long-awaited return to form.
It’s only fitting that forgotten man Dan Johnson delivered the game-tying home run with two outs in the bottom of the 9th of the Rays’ most important game of the season. Not because he’s done it before, but because it’s poetically endemic of how this Rays team works. They needed a curse-sized amount of luck to succeed, but the Rays’ unparalleled success with drafting and developing players, coupled with some shrewd and thrifty acquisitions, put them in the perfect position to take advantage of the opportunity that luck provided. And after this post-season, when pundits start to talk about the money that James Shields is going to make on the free-agent market, I hope those folks that poo-pooed the Rays’ chances After Crawford take a long hard look at this supposed long-shot of a contender and realize that the Rays are just getting started.
