When Red Sox clinch the division, it will feel like just the beginning
Winning the American League East will be party-starter, but there should be more fun to come
COMMENTARY
The math often messes with you this time of the season, even in heady times.
The Red Sox entered their second game of a series in the Bronx on Wednesday with a five-game lead in the American League East and the wild-card race. They are one game removed from a season-affirming 11-game winning streak in which all of the bad things turned good and all of the good things got better. I mean, the bullpen has a 0.89 ERA in September. Talk about impossible dreams. It’s all happening.
As the Red Sox seized this season by the throat during that 11-game run, they looked liked potential October duck boat passengers, and the worries about actually making the playoffs ceded our minds to cruel daydreams about prolonging the Cubs’ generations of misery. Kindred spirits? Not anymore, he said smugly. Not after three World Series titles in a dozen years, with aspirations of a fourth.
For a night, however, the good vibes and championship aspirations were put on hold. Call it a reign delay, if you will. With a chance Tuesday night to clinch the AL East at Yankee Stadium — an irresistible venue for such celebrations given the franchises’ shared history — the Red Sox stumbled, losing the game, the winning streak, the chance to pop a few bottles on rival turf, and if only for a moment, that fleeting sense of invincibility that comes along every few seasons if your favorite franchise is so fortunate.
Oh, the Red Sox will win the AL East this season. This is a well-rounded, talented team, and one with a significant cushion in the standings. Hell, maybe it will have already happened by the time you read this. But because of the frustrations of how Tuesday’s game went down — David Price allowing three homers in six-plus innings, David Ortiz swinging through a Tyler Clippard meatball with the tying runs on in the ninth — it felt like more than the temporary delay of an inevitable celebration.
It wasn’t, of course. They’re fine, and they’ll continue to be fine. But this is also where the math messes with you, where it jousts with your common sense. The worst-case scenarios are just realistic enough to seem possible. Caller, is it really out of the realm of possibility that the Red Sox lose their next five and the Jays win their next five and the division ends in a virtual tie and then Rick Porcello has to go in a one-game playoff and loses and then Price has to pitch in the wild-card and … my god, is Buchholz really the third starter? This is going to be worse than 2011!
I’m here to say I get where you’re coming from … but don’t sweat it, please. This team is for real. The math will cooperate. The champagne will flow. This is inevitable, even if it wasn’t Tuesday.
With five games left in the regular season, it’s really not the team-centric matters that interest me now, save for discovering who they might end up playing in the first round. (Finishing with the second-best record, and facing a depleted Indians team that may be down to Ken Schrom and Wayne Garland for starting pitchers, seems like a wise course of action, all due respect to Terry Francona.)
As far as I’m concerned, the suspense that remains lies with some individual performances. I was hoping to see Price get his 18th win, just because that seems like an impressive number in relation to the amount of grief he’s taken this season. Yes, it’s worrisome that he’s struggled in his last two starts, and he is 0-for-the-postseason as a starting pitcher, with seven losses. But he also was damn good through much of the summer, and it seems weird to me that his successes are collectively brushed off while his defeats are magnified. Eighteen wins would have been cool. Maybe he’ll pick up a few more in October.
(Random observation: How crazy was the talent in the 2014 Tigers starting rotation? They had Price, the possible 2016 Cy Young winners in Rick Porcello and Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Anibal Sanchez, and even Robbie Ray, who has struck out 215 batters for the Diamondbacks this season.)
I wanted to see Xander Bogaerts get to 100 RBIs. He’s been stuck at 88 for the past eight games, so that’s not happening, and his second-half slump (.253/.316/.404) has been an issue. But he’s also scored 113 runs, knocked a career-high 20 homers, and played a dependable shortstop. He doesn’t get enough credit for being one of their glue players.
It would be something else if David Ortiz had three more homers in him, just to get to 40 at age 40 and add one more exclamation point to his otherworldly farewell season. Another win for Porcello — which would give him the same 23-4 record that Pedro Martinez had in his legendary 1999 season — would be fitting. And one more home run for Hanley Ramirez — giving him a nice, round 30 — would be one more confirmation that I was so wrong about him. I’m happy to be wrong, too. His redemption has been one of the great joys of this season.
There are many more to come, of course. Whether the Red Sox end the suspense Wednesday and clinch the division or make us sweat it out for a few more days, this much is certain: they will spray champagne at least once this season. Better, when they do, it will feel like only the beginning.
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