Red Sox can take solace in some Loserville silver linings this October

BOSTON -- Remember when the Yankees came to Fenway Park for a one-game Wild Card playoff in 2021? It wasn't that long ago, but it feels as though a decade has passed since that level of electricity coursed through this city's blood. A couple of last-place finishes, the flushing out of the head of baseball operations, a largely hopeless starting rotation, and no clear organizational direction can have that effect.

Recent history will show that the Red Sox have proven capable of bouncing back from a last-place finish, having won the World Series in 2013 after the Bobby Valentine disaster and kicking off two postseason runs in 2016 and 2021 a year after finishing last in the AL East. So maybe there's hope for the near future, even if it doesn't feel like there's much to be found.

But if you're more the pessimistic type of Red Sox fan, you can at least find some solace in some negatives taking place this October. (No judgment here. Whatever keeps you warm at night.)

Mookie Betts went 0-for-October

The Dodgers got swept -- swept -- out of the playoffs on Wednesday night, getting outscored 19-6 in the three-game sweep by the Diamondbacks. After winning 100 games -- 16 games better than the Diamondbacks -- the Dodgers are done. It's the second straight year that L.A. failed to reach the NLCS.

And for the second straight postseason, Mookie Betts was a non-factor. Or more accurately, he was a detriment.

Betts finished his 2023 postseason with a .000 batting average, having gone 0-for-11. He reached base twice -- once on a walk, once via error -- in 12 plate appearances, scoring just one run in Game 1.

"I know for sure I did absolutely nothing to help us win," Betts said after the sweep. "There's no real words for it. ... I felt like I prepared the right way. I just did not execute anything."

The output from Betts was a drop from last postseason, when he hit just .143 in four games, going 2-for-14 with just one extra-base hit. Three walks gave him a .278 OBP, but he still scored just two runs in the four-game NLDS loss to the Padres.

Back in Boston, seemingly everyone still loves Betts, and with good reason. Still, the sting of trading away a homegrown franchise cornerstone might be lessened at least a little bit with postseason performances like this one.

(No? OK, well.)

The Baltimore Orioles won zero playoff games

We heard from Red Sox management before the season that this division was tough. And it was. The Orioles won the season-long race for the AL East crown, winning 101 games -- the most for the Baltimore franchise since 1979. It was their first division title since 2014 and just their second since the late '90s.

The vibes were high in Baltimore. Yet after earning a free pass to the ALDS, they got bulldozed by the Texas Rangers. Games 1 and 2 were tight, with the Rangers winning 3-2 in the opener in Baltimore and 11-8 the next night. But Game 3 was all Rangers, who won 7-1 to sweep the Orioles out of the playoffs.

And just like that, the great Orioles season disappeared.

The Tampa Bay Rays won zero playoff games

There's a commonly held belief that the Red Sox hired Chaim Bloom so that he could apply many of the successful strategies of the Rays' front office to a big market in Boston. We know that didn't work out too well, but we also might want to reconsider the mystique surrounding the Rays.

Yes, the Rays made the playoffs for the fifth straight season this year, after winning 99 games. But for the fourth time in those five years, the Rays failed to reach the ALCS. And for the second straight year, they failed to escape the Wild Card round. Also for the second straight year, they won zero playoff games.

Like the Orioles, the Rays also faced the Rangers. And just like the Orioles, the Rays got pounded, losing 4-0 in Game 1 and 7-1 a day later to lose the best-of-three series in Tampa.

The Rays have gone on one successful postseason run in the past decade, and it was derailed by the decision to pull Blake Snell from Game 6 of the 2020 World Series. Since then, they're 1-7 in the playoffs, having lost the 2021 ALDS to the Red Sox in four games and getting swept in the Wild Card Series in both of the past two seasons.

The Toronto Blue Jays won zero playoff games

A division having three teams make the playoffs? Incredible!

A division having three teams make the playoffs, with none of those teams winning a single baseball game?! Even more so!

The Blue Jays finished 12 games behind the Orioles in the AL East but still made the playoffs as a wild card. They headed out to Minnesota for their best-of-three series, and though they were competitive on the scoreboard, they also got swept. They mustered just one run in their 18 innings of postseason baseball, leaving them without any playoff wins since 2016. (They were swept in the Wild Card Series last year and in 2020, as well.)

The New York Yankees won zero playoff games

That's always a positive in Boston, right? Even when they're wallowing in misery at the bottom of the standings, these two teams love to root for each other to fail. So there's that.

(In the not-a-win department: Nathan Eovaldi is 2-0 with a 1.32 ERA this postseason, striking out 15 batters with zero walks in 13.2 innings so far. Both games won the series for his Rangers. But we knew he was a playoff performer when the Red Sox let him go. Considering the Red Sox weren't going to make the playoffs, there was no need to sign a postseason stud like Eovaldi.)

Overall, from a Red Sox perspective, they absolutely weren't in the same league as the Rays this past season, against whom they went a dreadful 2-11 this season. But Boston held its own against the other two divisional opponents that made the playoffs, going 7-6 vs. Toronto and 6-7 vs. Baltimore. And they also dominated the Yankees, going 9-4 against their rivals.

So what's the lesson? Er ... well ... it's that the Red Sox are kinda-sorta good enough to compete with playoff teams that combined to win zero playoff games. In an October following a miserable season, these are the only kind of "wins" that can be found in a Loserville state of mind.