162 games over 5 months... cold, rainy spring games... long, hot summer extra innings affairs and unending weeks of consecutive games in September and in the end, it all came down to three minutes.
Those three minutes were all the more abrupt and dramatic for me because the heavy rain and storm activity knocked out my satellite for the better part of the late innings and I was left to watch updates online, only to have the signal return with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth in Baltimore. Now... those of you that know me know I'm hardly a religious person. I find Adrian Gonzales' laying the blame at the feet of "god" comical. But... then again... something absolutely, completely, and stunningly improbable happened last night. What happened last night over the course of the final games for the Red Sox and Rays, respectively, was so statistically unlikely that I can promise you it will never, ever happen again.
Forget the September collapse. Forget the awful pitching... the injuries... tough schedule... all that noise. Last night was two games, four teams, and after 7 innings in both games everything seemed pretty well decided. The Sox were ahead 3-2 going in to the 7th inning against one of the worst teams in the American League, in a game they HAD to win, with their best pitchers at the ready. And even if they managed to blow it, the Rays were losing 7 - 0 in Tampa going in to the 8th inning. And then the skies opened up in Baltimore and everything there stopped. So I switched over to watch the Rays game, as the Scranton Yankees decided to walk half the Rays' lineup and then groove a pitch to Longoria, the only real threat in the lineup (with 2 outs and a base open... I'm just furious about this... Joe Girardi would never have pitched to him in this same scenario in mid-June... as if I needed another reason to hate the Yankees)... and just like that it was 7-6. And then the signal was lost.
For a few moments I debated just going to bed. It was late, and there was talk of the delay in Baltimore going on for some time. But I knew there was no way I'd have ever managed any sleep, so I occupied myself with some long-overdue writing and waited for the little dancing "DirecTV" logo to stop bouncing around my screen and for the game to return. By this time the Sox had resumed play and had gone through the bottom of the 7th, 8th, and top of the 9th. I flipped my browser to mlb.com and saw that the Rays had tied it with 2 out in the ninth. My heart was slowly sinking... but still, the Sox pitching staff seemed to realize the importance of this game and were reaching back for whatever they had left. Aceves dug deep to work around two hit batsmen in what seemed like his 200th inning of relief in the past two weeks. Bard actually returned from the dead to pitch a 1-2-3 8th, and then it was Papelbon, who has truly been a lights-out closer this year, and despite his blown save earlier in the month and the fact that he had pitched quite a few innings over the past few games, you felt like this was one of those moments where he could get whatever he needed.
I was getting anxious now as I was watching the game in Tampa slide into extra innings... waiting for the "bottom" of the inning signal on the TB-NY game in the marquee above the Sox-O's live-game view I was watching to mercifully flip to "top"... hoping it would do so before a number was added to the Rays' score. I watched in silence as the interminably slow pitch-by-pitch app showed the pitch results... A strikeout for the first out. A strikeout for the second. Papelbon seemed dialed in. And in the Rays game the Yanks had runners on the corners and no-one out. For the first time since the Rays had tied their game up, I felt hopeful. Confident even. And even while the Yanks were squandering their offensive opportunity, Papelbon had gotten to two strikes, and I was starting to feel a little cheated that I was going to miss the final out.
And then the signal returned. And three minutes later I was sitting in the dark. Alone. In silence.
Three minutes. That's all it took for Papelbon to give up the lead on three consecutive hits by the 8, 9, and 1 hitters on one of the worst teams in baseball. Fastball after fastball after fastball... 7 of the last 9 pitches. The final pitch a splitter that didn't split. And that was it... game over. The supposed best pitcher on one of the supposed best teams in baseball couldn't retire the 8 and 9 hitter on a bad team in a game they had to win. And that was it.
I barely had time to absorb the game when ESPN flipped over to the TB game. I was in the middle of deciding whether I wanted to even bother watching... I had a sense of the inevitable but felt, for some silly reason, that the odds of the Rays winning were higher if I were watching. As i was having this thought the game appeared in front of me... and Evan Longoria was up. And before the pitch even left the hand of Scott 'what the hell am I doing back in NY' Proctor, I knew what was coming. I was ready for it. And as the ball curled around the left field pole over the approximately 18 inch high fence in what has to be the most ridiculously designed foul-pole feature in baseball and the Sox season came to an end, I let out a sigh, and turned off the TV. I sat in the dark for a good 15 or 20 minutes, trying to absorb what I'd just witnessed... the incalculable improbability of all those things happening... the almost eerie confluence of rain delay, lost signal, and nearly simultaneous conclusion... all of it made me wonder if I were just dreaming it. I tried to force myself awake and then realized for certain that I already was. The shock gave way to exasperation as I recalled all of the games we gave away in the last month... all of the games we threw Wakefield out there, knowing he'd get shelled, in what seems now like a fool-hearty attempt at a so-so milestone. All of the games we left Lackey in too long. All of the runs we left on base... All of the things that in retrospect, it seems like we could have done that would have managed us just one more win... and before I left the couch and headed off to bed at around 12:30 in the morning I was left with one simple, lingering, burning thought...
It should never have come to this.
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