Happy New Year Dear Readers! With just 47 days before the Boston Red Sox pitchers and catchers report, I am sure everyone is eager to move on from the painful 2011 season. We have already covered the hopeful 2011 pre-season, the early season’s ups and down and the Herculean fall of the second half. This final piece brings us right up to date, wrapping up the off-season to date as the team moves toward the new season in hopes of redemption.

 

When the Baltimore Orioles celebration ended and the Tampa Bay Rays startling comeback was completed, theBostonmedia began looking for their sacrificial lamb. Unlike the failures in 1986 and 2003, this collapse had no clear goat. The team had not blown just a single game; it had gone 7-20 over the full month. While closer Jonathan Papelbon had lost the final game of the season, he could hardly be blamed for the collapse in its entirety. Setup man Daniel Bard had a terrible September, blowing four leads in the month, but he had also been called upon far too often, as theBostonstarters logged just 128 innings in the month. The offense failed the team in close games; the team lost 5 one run games and won just two in the month and lost an additional three games by just two runs. The failure was a team failure.

 

That didn’t stop the press from their righteous witch hunt, however, and on Wednesday, October 12, they broke out their fake noses and pulled out the duck-laden scales. Various news outlets revealed that while the team’s record was wasting away starting pitchers Jon Lester, Josh Beckett and John Lackey were indulging in an off-day ritual of drinking beer, playing video games and chowing down on delicious Popeye’s fried chicken. Jon Lester tried to clarified things, explaining the beer was just a “ninth inning rally beer” and that the pitchers indulged in the tasty poultry “maybe once a month.” The Boston Globe even went so far as to call for the team to trade Josh Beckett, who even with his terrible performance in September still managed a 2.89 ERA and a 3.57 FIP, thanks in part to his highest swing strike rate since he left the National League. Clearly, the collapse did as much damage to our collective intelligence as it did to our hearts.