3 Reasons why the Red Sox are not going to the World Series

The Red Sox came close to the World Series, but came up short

In a season that closely resembled the Impossible Dream season of 1967, the Boston Red Sox, whom many pundits did not even expect to make the playoffs, surprised many by winning 92 games, beating the New York Yankees, and knocking off the 100-win Tampa Bay Rays in the ALDS.

Unfortunately, just like the 1967 team, the Red Sox came up short of their ultimate goal, as they were eliminated from the MLB playoffs after losing Game 6 to the Houson Astros last night. While the Red Sox certainly exceeded expectations and were playing with house money at this point, it was still nonetheless disappointing for many fans to see their team get knocked out last night.

Every year, it seems there is that one team that nobody expected to win anything that gets hot and wins it all. Think 2011 Cardinals, 2013 Red Sox, or 2019 Nationals. The Red Sox seemed like they were going to be that team this year.

Here we will discuss three reasons why ultimately that wasn’t the case.

Red Sox had their issues with umpires

We could all practically taste it. The Sox were in the driver’s seat. They had stolen a game in Houston, won Game 3 at Fenway, and were tied 2-2 at home entering the 9th inning of Game 4.  They were just three outs and one run away from taking a commanding 3-1 series lead. While taking such a lead would not have guaranteed the Red Sox a trip to the World Series, just ask the 2007 Cleveland Indians, it certainly would’ve given the Red Sox the upper hand in the series and made it a lot harder for the Astros to comeback.

But alas, this did not happen, as it would all fall apart in large part due to home plate umpire Laz Diaz. Let us set the scene. Nathan Eovaldi, who was pitching in relief for the Red Sox in the 9th, had given up a lead off double to Carlos Correa, but had retired the next two batters and was up 1-2 in the count on Jason Castro.

Diaz had a horrible night behind the plate. According to Jeff Passan of ESPN.com, Diaz had missed 23 ball-strikes calls up to that point, but had been relatively consistent as 12 of the missed calls had been in favor of the Red Sox and the other 11 were in favor of the Astros.

The next few pitches would not only break that tie, but have a dramatic effect on the game and ultimately the series. Eovaldi threw a 1-2 curveball that very clearly nipped the outside corner of the strike zone, but was called a ball by Diaz.

Two pitches later Castro would give the Astros the lead with a single to center. The Astros would go on to score seven runs in the inning putting the game away before the Red Sox even had a chance to hit in the bottom of the 9th.

Had Diaz made the correct call, Eovaldi would have been out of the inning and the Red Sox would have entered the bottom of the 9th tied 2-2 with the chance to walk off game 4 and take a 3-1 series lead.

Red Sox offense disappeared

While the Red Sox pitching had been decent for most of the postseason, it was the offense that had carried the team. When the pitching surrendered six runs in Game 2 of the ALDS against the Rays, the offense stepped up and scored 14 runs. And after they blew 4-2 and 5-0 leads in Games 3 and 4, the offense showed up again by delivering walk-off hits in both of those.

In the ALCS, they would pick up right where they left off, scoring 25 runs in the first three including 12 in a Game 3 victory where they set a postseason record for most grand slams in a postseason series.

The Astros appeared to be in trouble as well. Their ace, Lance McCullers, had been ruled out for the series due to injury and after exiting early from Game 2, it appeared Luis Garcia would be unavailable for the rest of the season. Due to Garcia’s injury, the Astros also had to burn their Game 3 starter, Jake Odorizzi in order to do some mop up work in Game 2. This led yours truly and many others to believe that the Red Sox had taken the pitching advantage in the series. 

This ultimately turned out to be a false belief as the Astros would find the key to taming the Red Sox offense: throw strikes. One of the few weaknesses of this Red Sox offense during the regular season had been their tendency to swing at pitches out of the strike zone. Heading into the month of September, Boston had chased an MLB worst 31% of pitches out of the strike zone.

But once the postseason started, they flipped the switch. The team collectively decided to take a more patient approach at the plate and it worked. Opposing pitchers threw pitches outside of the strike zone expecting the Red Sox to chase them. The Sox laid off those pitches leading to more walks as well as hitters counts.

The best example of this being Game 2 of the ALCS when Garcia walked three batters in the first two innings, all three of which came around to score on grand slams from JD Martinez and Rafael Devers. In Game 3, Jose Urquidy walked two batters in the bottom of the 2nd inning before surrendering the record breaking grand slam to Kyle Schwarber.

However, beginning in Game 5, the Astros began a new approach of pounding the strike zone early in the count, decreasing the chances of a walk and leading to more pitcher’s counts. In Game 5, Astros starter Framber Valdez fired first pitch strikes to 17 of the 27 batters he faced and only walked one batter over 8 innings.

The most dramatic turnaround came from their Game 6 starter Luis Garcia who after getting pounded in Game 2, mostly due to his erratic control, threw first pitch strikes to 12 of the 20 batters he faced and walked only one batter over 5.2 innings pitched. And it worked. Over the final two games of the ALCS the Red Sox scored a combined one run.