Tag Archives: Red Sox

Dear Braves and Red Sox…Sincerely The Mets

Posted on by ryanconover

After last night’s historic finish to the MLB season, we take some time to put it all in context. For that, I invited an old friend who is a tried and true Mets fan. In 2007, he experienced a collapse not unlike those from Boston and Atlanta so he remembers what it feels like and writes an open letter to the fans in Atlanta and Boston.

Dear Braves and Red Sox fans,

My name is Ryan Conover and I am a New York Mets fan. No one feels more empathy for Boston and Atlanta than I do.

Three weeks left in the 2007 season, my Mets held a seven game division lead in the National League East. Not only did we lose the division, but we couldn’t hang on to even win the wild card. Now that’s the definition of a choke.

Similar to the Braves situation, the Mets ’07 collapse left them clinging onto a one game lead going into the final series of the season, at home. The only difference is the Mets had the Marlins, while the Braves were stuck with the over powering Phillies.

Let’s revisit 2007 for a second. The Mets finished the season with a seven game home stand against teams with losing records. They went onto lose six of those seven games and finished one game behind the Phillies in the NL East, and don’t forget, right before that home stand, the Mets had a four game series versus the surging Phillies. The Mets got swept by the Phillies to start the slide. Ring any bells Braves fans?

Let’s turn to the Red Sox. Like the ‘07 Mets, Boston has a star closer fall apart in the final week. Remember, Billy Wagner blew two saves in the final stretch of the season, just like Papelbon. Wagner’s blown saves both came in games that the Mets made a comeback in to take a 9th inning lead, making the losses even more crushing.

Enough of the pity party!

It will get better. You guys are not the Mets. The Braves will continue to finish ahead of the Mets every year and the Red Sox will continue to be a storied franchise.

For the Mets, we have never been as good as the 2007 season and the future is not looking bright.

Keep your heads up and you always have next season when you guys know you can compete again.

At the end of the day, to show you the silver lining, just remember; at least you’re not a Mets fan.

A METSmerizing Collapse

Posted on by Ryan Kantor

As a freshman at Clemson I wrote for a school newspaper. It was at the end of September four years ago, and the Mets had just wrapped the biggest baseball collapse of my lifetime. Seeing something pretty special in the Phillies comeback, to end what otherwise was a disappointing year where Boston won the AL East and World Series, I wrote an article for the school paper. After last nights historic collapses/comebacks involving Tampa, Boston, St. Louis, and Atlanta, I was inspired to go back and reread my article and share it here.

For Braves and Red Sox fans, this may put it in perspective and take a little pain away.

The Situation

The New York Mets head into their final 17 games with a hefty seven game lead. They won the division last year (2006), and have been in first since the early in the season. Of their remaining games only one series is against a team with a winning record. To not win the division at this point would require the greatest collapse in the history of baseball or maybe even all of sports, and collapse is exactly what the Mets did.

The Fall

As the Mets lost at an almost unrealistic pace (losing 12 of their last 17 games) the Phillies seized the opportunity and won 12 of their final 16 games. The Mets superstar leadoff man, shortstop Jose Reyes, went 2-for-23 (.087) in the final five games of the season.  Mets closer, Billy Wagner, did not record a save after September 12—with still over two weeks left in the season. He blew his final save opportunity of the season on September 23 and allowed more runs in his next appearance. Despite all the losses, the season still ended up coming down to the final day. The Mets and Phillies were tied, each with one game left to play. The Phillies sent veteran Jamie Moyer to the mound. Moyer did not allow an earned run and the Phillies won the game 6-1. The Mets also sent a successful veteran to the mound in Tom Glavine, but his start became a total disaster. He recorded just one out in the first inning before allowing seven earned runs and being pulled from the game. The Mets could not mount a comeback and Glavine took the loss that capped the Mets demise.

For the first time since 1993 the Phillies captured the NL East crown, a title which was exclusive to the Atlanta Braves for 10 years before the Mets won it last year (2006). The heart that the Phillies showed down the stretch was remarkable. Most teams would have given up with the Mets holding an imposing seven game lead, but the Phillies under manager Charlie Manuel, did not. Instead they went to New York, swept the Mets, and shoved the Mets into their tumble.

Context

Now the only question is where this collapse fits in sports history. It is certainly more astounding than the Red Sox ALCS comeback against the Yankees in 2004. That was simply 4 games of a 7 game series. Statistically the probability of a Red Sox comeback was much higher. This was an entire regular season coming apart at the seams for the Mets.

The famous disaster of the 1978 Red Sox may be the only one even comparable to this one. In 1978 the Red Sox had a 14 game lead over the Yankees and allowed the Yankees to come all the way back and take the division from them on Bucky Dent’s famous home run in a one game playoff. Still, the 14 game lead was in July with over two months left in the season. The Mets had just 17 games left to lock up their division title.

When asked how he felt, one dedicated Mets fan said: “Disgraced,” “Ashamed,” and “Humiliated.” David Wright said he was “embarrassed” about the debacle. If you’re a Mets fan, luckily the offseason is short in baseball.

After reading my old article, and seeing the finish to this season, where do you rank this season’s collapses in baseball history?

Boston’s Historic Collapse Wouldn’t Be Possible With A Second Wild Card

Posted on by Ryan Kantor

On September 2nd, the Rays were 9 games behind Boston for the AL wild card. The Braves led both the Cardinals and Giants by 8.5 games. All the ESPN commentators were going on and on about how baseball should add an additional wild card spot in each league to make the races more exciting. They argued that the only quality race was happening in the AL East, where the Yankees were giving Boston more trouble than expected, holding a half game lead.

While hindsight is 20-20, we can now look back and see how ridiculous their claims were. Expanding the playoffs doesn’t create more excitement, it just shifts the excitement from being around the very good teams (the great teams are already in the postseason) to the fairly good teams that would be fighting for a second wild card slot.

Luckily, we only have one wild card so we can spend a few days marveling at these amazing collapses from Boston and Atlanta, before attention shifts to the Yankees battling Justin Verlander.

The Red Sox finished the season on a 7-20 spiral, and as I’m sure you saw, blew a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the 9th. Just minutes after Papelbon’s meltdown, Evan Longoria beat the Yankees (much to the Yankees’ own approval) with a extra inning home run. Really, the night was a microcosm of the season. The Rays fell behind an apathetic Yankees team by 7 runs, never gave up, fought their way back, and somehow won in amazing comeback fashion. Meanwhile the Red Sox and Braves were busy blowing ninth inning leads, a fitting way to end month long collapses.

Jonathan Papelbon is one of the most hated players by Yankee fans, and watching him blow the game (and season) adds a schmear of extra satisfaction for us Yankee fans. Somehow it doesn’t feel like the Yankees just got swept by Tampa, it feel like we just swept Boston! Another great thing to come out of these collapses…Jacoby Ellsbury won’t win the MVP!

After the games ended, a commentator on ESPN said, “September baseball has never been better.” I hope that means adding an extra wild card has lost it’s momentum, because this is why “…baseball is the greatest game.” – Tim Kurkjian

Feel free to leave your cheers of joy or angry banter in the comments.

The Boston Red Sox and Their Awesome Inferiority Complex

Posted on by Ryan Kantor

A resolutely slanted recap of the what Boston was supposed to do,
and how funny it is that they are failing

In the offseason before the 2009 season, the New York Yankees splurged on three big free agents. They paid an exorbitant amount of money to sign CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and AJ Burnett. Of course we now know that New York went on to win the AL East by seven games and win their 27th World Series Championship by beating the Phillies in six games.

Two years later, despite oft complaining about the spending habits of the New York Yankees, Boston abandoned fiscal restraint with a chain of moves that brought in star sluggers Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford.

The San Diego Padres were coming off a solid season in 2010. They had battled the Giants for the division all season, but a late season losing streak and a head to head loss versus San Francisco ended their run, and the Giants won the division and subsequently the World Series. Adrian Gonzalez didn’t request to be traded, but it was a given that the Padres wouldn’t be able to afford him when his contract expired after the 2011 season. The Red Sox were there to solve their problem. Able to afford a lucrative contract extension for Adrian Gonzalez, the Sox moved some top prospects (keep an eye on RHP Casey Kelly) and brought the super star first baseman to Boston.

Boston wasn’t done. After the Rays had taken the Yankees usual spot atop the AL East, pushing the Yankees to the wild card and leaving Boston to watch the 2010 playoffs being tactfully broadcast on TBS (always better to watch than an ESPN telecast) the Sox decided to lure two of the Rays key free agents to Boston.

Boston awarded Tampa Bay left fielder Carl Crawford a record setting contract, making him the first player in Red Sox history with a contract with an average annual value in excess of $20 million, and the first player in MLB history to receive a $100 million contract to never have a 20 home run season.

Following the two biggest splashes of the offseason, Boston then turned their attention to their bullpen. First giving a 2-year 12 million dollar contract to Bobby Jenks, a formerly great closer for the White Sox, and then adding insult to injury for Tampa, inking the Rays solid set-up man, Dan Wheeler, to a 1-year 3 million dollar deal. The Yankees followed suit by signing the Rays closer, Rafael Soriano, to an oversized contract leaving the Rays looking around wondering what happened to their division winning team.

After all the changes, the Red Sox were the talk of the offseason. Not only did they acquire the two best available players in the offseason, but they fixed the prior year’s weakness with the two signings for the bullpen. All was jolly in New England.

The Yankees had the worst rotation among serious playoff contenders–if they were even grouped in that class. Many experts thought they was too weak to beat out Tampa for the wild card, even with all the players the Rays had lost. They lost out on signing Cliff Lee and the media was crushing them for it. With Andy Pettitte retiring they were in trouble. All was doom and gloom in New York.

But then the year started and the Red Sox couldn’t just play games on paper anymore. They got off to a horrific start, and pressure mounted. Before things could get too bad, a critical series with New York resulted in Boston taking two out of three and starting to play quality baseball. Not too much later they would sweep the Yankees and slice into their early division lead. A blink of the eye later they were leading the division and everyone congratulated themselves on a good pre-season prediction. A-Rod was on the DL and Yankee fans were wondering how much longer they could rely on Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia. This was the first time in a long time where you could get almost any logical Yankee fan to admit that the Red Sox seemed like the overall superior team.

Boston only held a 2 game lead in late August despite “dominating” the Yankees in head to head play. The bleacher report even went so far as to say the Red Sox wanted the division more and were giving a “superior effort.” Then the darnedest thing happened, the Red Sox started losing at the rapid pace that they were dropping games to start the year. They lost 14 of their first 18 September games falling as far back as 5.5 games behind New York. Now the thought is that Rays team that’s only two games behind (depending on when you’re reading this) could take the wild card, eliminating them from the post season all together (we’ll save that potential blog post for another day).

The Red Sox have scored the most runs in baseball. Looking at their roster, I’m amazed that they can play this poorly. Sure they have had their fair share of injuries, but when you have the money to buy the depth its really no excuse. They had the newsworthy offseason. 2011 was their year. Red Sox v. Phillies was all but written in stone, and while they could still make a postseason run as the wild card, now is no time to think of appalling and unpleasant things like that. Now is a time to celebrate and commemorate their dissapointment.

The story of the 2011 AL East is no comeback story—the Yankees never fell too far behind. Nor is this a David beating Goliath story. It’d be more apt to relate it to Goliath continuing to consistently beating the piss out of his nearly as big and menacing foe, despite his foe buying all sorts of new armor and swords that were supposed to finally change things.

After the Red Sox admittedly amazing 2004 title and well deserved 2007 title, the inferiority complex that seemed to have found a cozy place in Boston disappeared. It was quickly replaced by an arrogance much like that of Yankee fans except much less deserving. It’s possible that more Red Sox hats were purchased and more people became Red Sox “fans” between ’04-’09 than the previous 20 years. It was reprehesible, and painful for Yankee fans to witness. 

Not to worry. Society has corrected itself. There is evidence that inferiority complex is returning. This year, despite all the hype and all the logical reasons to expect the Red Sox to win the division, the only manager in my fantasy league to not pick the Red Sox to win the division was the one die hard Boston fan. His explanation was something like, ”we never win the division. The Yankees always win the damn division.”

Ohhh it’s back, and society is in a better place for it. The Yankees have won 11 AL East titles dating back to the 1996 season. The Red Sox have won one (2007). If the Yankees hang on it’ll be 12 titles in 16 years. Now we watch to see if the Red Sox can manage to waste away their wild card lead too, now that’ll be a story.

Apologies for the excessive bias, but on rare occasion it’s not even worth trying to hold back. I’ll be eating my words if the Sox somehow beat New York in the postseason, after all they did win the season series handily.