The bottle of Bud Light rested next to him as Jonathan Papelbon folded his shirts, filled his bags, and cleared out his locker. The rest of his teammates had melted away, either out the door to lives that might not include the Red Sox next season or back into the players’ lounge, where there was solace in a beer or two. But Papelbon sat on a chair in his corner of the clubhouse, long after he had thrown his final pitch of the day and the season, silently packing.
Closed for season
Papelbon can’t shut door, Angels sweep Red Sox
He had been so close to ending the afternoon, extending this American League Division Series. And yet he hadn’t, his fastball-fastball-fastball repertoire not fooling the Angels, leaving himself and his team open for an improbable comeback. Papelbon had been one strike away three times with two outs in the ninth inning. Erick Aybar singled, then Chone Figgins walked, then Bobby Abreu doubled.
On each batter, Papelbon had gotten to two strikes. He couldn’t get any of them.
And so, on an afternoon that looked ripe for an extension of the ALDS, the Sox watched as their All-Star closer, the one who started the day having never allowed an earned run in his 26-inning postseason career, gave up two inherited runs in the eighth, and three of his own in the ninth, leading to a 7-6 loss. He blew the save, and as he walked off the mound after he was pulled by manager Terry Francona, some of the 38,704 booed.
As Clay Buchholz said after it was all over, “It can turn on you just as quick as you can win the game. Hard to even think about the way that went down just now.’’
“The season doesn’t wind down,’’ Francona said. “It just comes to a crashing halt.’’
So that was it for the Sox, their 2009 season coming to a close in most crushing fashion. For a team that had been 9-2 in elimination games in the Francona era, the Sox blew a chance to add a tally in the winning column, coming as close as they could to earning a Game 4.
It was demoralizing, mostly because the offense was supposed to be the issue. Instead, as the Sox finally got a few hits against the Angels, their lights-out bullpen left the lights on.
“I think we got outplayed in this series,’’ Sox general manager Theo Epstein said. “We didn’t play our best baseball. We didn’t play all that well, all things told, over these last three games. And they certainly did. They deserve it. They outplayed us fair and square and deserve to move on. You have to be a really good [team] and play really well to win in the playoffs. We didn’t play well in this series.’’
Advertisement
Advertisement