The Red Sox have six games to decide their fate
What are we doing here? Six games are left on the 2021 regular season schedule and the Red Sox have seen their comfortable lead in the AL Wild Card race completely disappear. Going into this past weekend, Boston had a two-game lead on the Yankees but after getting swept by their rivals, they’re now a game back. While many still believe that this squad will still make it to the Wild Card Game, they need to wake up and show some fight if they want to get there.
This weekend was rough, painful at-bats, sketchy relief pitching, and our ace getting demolished while our other two starters saw great starts negated. One thing that stood out the most to me during this final clash with the Bronx Bombers, the Red Sox went silent.
I don’t mean as far as the offense but more so in their emotion. Little blips here and there peeked through but nothing to the level that should accompany a Boston-New York clash with Postseason implications.
The worst offense, you may ask? When Christian Vázquez dropped the ball on the transfer during that Aaron Judge at-bat. The entire world knew that he didn’t drop the third strike and that he lost the ball on the transfer, but not a peep from Boston.
Gonna be tough for the Red Sox to swallow a loss if this is why it happened, I would think. pic.twitter.com/aWNLiYzigx
— Michael Hurley (@michaelFhurley) September 27, 2021
It’s something that can’t be reviewed, but to now even ask the umpires to speak to one another? Unacceptable. Vazqy didn’t turn around to question the always questionable Joe West, and Alex Cora just sat there. Someone needed to raise their voice and say literally anything to pause that game at that moment to get a discussion going. Alas, that wasn’t the case.
Yeah, the Red Sox went on a seven-game winning streak but they just lost two to their biggest enemy and this game had to be won. I need to see some fire, at least from Cora, in a moment like that. Start barking, get in West’s face, DO SOMETHING. This was a moment that more than deserved getting tossed, even if to just fire your guys up after what’s been a miserable weekend.
Boston has six games remaining on the year with three against Baltimore and Washington to end the season. Most of you will point to how awful those two clubs are and that this should be a breeze. Hell, the Sox are still favored to make it to the play-on game but the fact that all they needed to do was take one from the Yanks this weekend, had two of the three games in hand, and still couldn’t do it is upsetting.
Going into this season, most of us didn’t have high hopes for this squad but then they went out and just dominated the first half to where it felt like we had ourselves a bit of a Cinderella story on our hands. A dismal second half would erase all of that goodwill and now it all comes down to this final week.
I know that the boys should be able to get it done and I may be panicking for nothing, but I also don’t want to count those chickens before they hatch.
It all starts tonight, six games with everything on the line. The Red Sox need to throw everything and the kitchen sink at both the O’s and Nats. Don’t let them feel for even a second that they can topple this squad. AC needs to sit these guys down, fire them up, and get them focused. They don’t need to win all six games, but it sure would do them wonders going into that Wild Card Game. Getting as much momentum as possible behind this club is exactly what’s needed right now.