Boston’s baseball summer ended in abrupt, throwup/throwback fashion when star closer Jonathan Papelbon failed to hold a two-run lead in the top of the ninth with two outs, nobody on base, and an 0 and 2 count on the No. 9 batter. The oft-maligned Angels, who had lost nine of 10 playoff games against Boston in this century before the series began, rallied for three runs and danced on the Fenway grass after another silent ninth by the Red Sox.
There was nothing fluky about this outcome, folks. It was a three-game sweep, a Boston beatdown in which all of the locals’ flaws were exposed. Just as we feared, the 2009 Red Sox were artificially enhanced by home-field dominance (56-25 at Fenway) and a lot of games against the Triple A Orioles. Ultimately, the Franconamen were a team with too many holes to win a World Series.
“I don’t think anything that happened in this series was completely out of the blue,’’ said general manager Theo Epstein. “We saw things that were reflected early in the season.’’
“You have to tip your hat to the Angels,’’ added club chairman Tom Werner. “They played better than we did.’’
All graciousness aside, there was a lot of weird science and superstition attached to the finale. Start with Dave Henderson, who threw out the first pitch. Twenty-three years ago, Henderson was the Sox’ October hero. He hit the go-ahead ninth-inning homer off Angels closer Donnie Moore in the crucial fifth game of the ALCS, which ended with the Sox winning, 7-6 (familiar, no?). It was the first of the infamous “One Strike Away’’ games in the antumn of ’86 and it sent the Angels into a worm hole from which they did not emerge until 2002.
Just as the Angels were one strike away multiple times in ’86, the Sox were within one pitch of victory several times yesterday. It’s still hard to believe the Red Sox lost.
Boston led, 5-1 in the sixth, 5-2 in the eighth, and 6-4 in the ninth with two outs, nobody aboard, and an 0-2 count on Erick Aybar.
