Did Red Sox Hit Rock Bottom Over The Weekend?
By Matthew Geagan, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Red Sox are slumping, and currently teetering on a full-blown collapse. While they remain in one of the two AL Wild Card spots at the moment, playoff baseball no longer feels like a guarantee for Boston's baseball team.
How things have changed in just over a month. The Red Sox held a healthy 4.5 game lead over the Rays in the AL East on July 5, a comfortable but not insurmountable advantage over their divisional foe. But there was a comfy cushion in front of the rest of the division, as the Blue Jays sat nine games back and the Yankees were a whopping 10.5 games back of Boston in the standings.
Looking at the AL East standings on Monday is a little more cringe-inducing for Boston fans, thanks to a woeful month-plus of baseball from the Red Sox. Slip 'N Slides are usually fun in the summer, but not when you're a Major League Baseball team.
This last month has been downright ugly, as the team has gone 11-17 since their July 5 win over the Angels. Things really hit rock bottom with a 2-8 road trip, which concluded Sunday with a bullpen implosion against the Jays.
The Boston offense has sputtered as of late, and when it has it going, either the inept rotation or overworked bullpen falters. Complementary baseball has been nonexistent for the Red Sox in the second half, and all of the comeback magic the team enjoyed to start the season has evaporated now that the dog days of summer have arrived.
And as Boston stumbled throughout July and into August, the competition in the AL East just kept getting better. The Rays have gone 19-8 since the Red Sox took that 4.5 game lead in the division, and now sit four games ahead of the Red Sox. Those 19 wins include a three-game sweep over Boston in St. Pete, which played a big part in Tampa Bay's 8.5 game swing over the last month-plus.
The Yankees, meanwhile, have gone 15-7 in August and sit just 2.5 games behind Boston in both the AL East and the AL Wild Card standings. The Blue Jays, who just took three of four from Boston this weekend, sit just three games back of the Red Sox in those standings.
It's certainly getting a little tight in the AL East and Wild Card picture, and the Red Sox have no one to blame but themselves. While their competition used the trade deadline to make major improvements to their respective clubs, with the Yankees adding home run machine Anthony Rizzo and the Rays inserting Nelson Cruz's powerful bat into their lineup, Boston made just slight alterations that are barely noticeable. They needed a first baseman, so Chaim Bloom traded for outfielder Kyle Schwarber -- who they'll convert to first base whenever he gets on the field for Boston. Scwarber has yet to make his Red Sox debut as he recovers from a hamstring injury that he dealt with in Washington. Now he's dealing with a groin injury that will push that debut back a tad bit further, meaning help in the lineup isn't coming anytime soon.
The Red Sox could have used another starter at the deadline too, but instead the team decided to bank on Chris Sale's return from Tommy John surgery. Sale is set to join the Boston rotation on Saturday, but his return should have been seen as more of a luxury than a deadline acquisition.
Instead of addressing the needs in the rotation, Bloom and Co. added relievers Hansel Robles and Austin Davis, who have each made four appearances for their new team. Combined, the duo has allowed seven runs off 16 hits (eight apiece).
The team was struggling before, but the Red Sox have been downright woeful since since Bloom's lackadaisical approach to the deadline. Now they're returning home losers of 10 of their last 13 games, and it feels like the season is slipping away.
Granted, the Red Sox are still in the playoff picture, owners of the fifth-best record American League and one of the league's two Wild Card berths. If the season mercifully came to an end today for Boston, they Red Sox would be playing the Oakland A's in the Wild Card game.
But given how the team has played lately, the hopes of Boston winning the division and avoiding the one-game play-in is fading by the day. If the Red Sox don't figure things out soon, their playoff hopes may dissipate as well.
