'07 Mets Who? Braves, Red Sox Collapses Actually Worse
NEW YORK (WFAN/AP) — And you thought the Mets' epic collapse of 2007 was bad?
Move over, Tom Glavine. Make room, incredibly, for Jonathan Papelbon.
This breakdown lasted a month and finally ended when there were no more games left to lose.
"This is just maybe the worst situation that I ever have been involved in my whole career," designated hitter David Ortiz said. "It's going to stay in a lot of people's minds for a while."
No team has blown a bigger lead in September — a nine-game margin through Sept. 3 — and missed the playoffs. Boston went 6-18 after that and did not win consecutive games at any point in the month.
Stunning.
"This is one for the ages, isn't it?" general manager Theo Epstein said, a blank stare on his face.
Four years ago, New York had a seven-game lead on the Philadelphia Phillies with 18 days left but was tied with one game remaining — just as the Red Sox and Rays were tied Wednesday.
The pregame mood in the clubhouse was "quiet, not too much energy. When you lose that big a lead, it's tough," Mets shortstop Jose Reyes recalled on Wednesday.
In that finale, Glavine had one of the worst games of his 21-year career and the Mets lost 8-1 to Florida. A few minutes later, their season was over when the Phillies beat Washington 6-1.
"Things started snowballing. We got cold in every aspect of the game — pitching, hitting and defense," Mets third baseman David Wright said Wednesday. "We had such good players, everybody wanted to be the guy that stepped up and got us out of that. Sometimes when you try too hard, that could have that negative result."
Boston began play Wednesday tied with Tampa Bay in the AL wild card race. But the Red Sox lost to the Baltimore Orioles 4-3 when Papelbon, who had blown just one save before this month, blew his second in September, allowing two runs in the ninth.
A few minutes later in St. Petersburg, Fla., Evan Longoria's solo homer in the 12th inning gave the Rays a hard-to-believe 8-7 win over the Yankees after they trailed 7-0 through seven.
Meanwhile, in Atlanta, it's going to take a long time to get over this one.
With a September swoon that ranked right up there with all those playoff flops in the 1990s and 2000s, the Braves frittered away a wild card that seemed a certainly just a few weeks ago. Instead, it's St. Louis heading to the playoffs, while Atlanta has all winter to figure out what went wrong.
Was it that blown lead in St. Louis, which opened the door for a Cardinals sweep that seemed to turn the tide in early September? Was it that potentially game-ending grounder Chipper Jones somehow lost in the lights at Florida, quickly followed by a homer that handed the Braves another excruciating loss?
Was it the injury-plagued starters? The young bullpen that seemed to wear down? The punchless offense that totally disappeared in the final days?
Whatever the reasons, it officially ended Wednesday night with closer Craig Kimbrel blowing a lead in the ninth inning and Hunter Pence coming through with a two-out, broken-bat single in the 13th that gave the Phillies a 4-3 victory.
But the collapse began long before the regular season finale. The Braves were a dismal 9-18 in September and ended with a five-game losing streak to finish a game behind the Cardinals.
"We had our chances," center fielder Michael Bourn said. "Not just this game. You can go weeks before."
The Braves were 10½ games ahead of St. Louis before play on Aug. 26. They were still up by 8½ games on the morning of Sept. 6. Instead of popping champagne for a second straight trip to the playoffs, they became the first team in major league history to squander a lead of at least eight games for a playoff spot in September.
They had company a short time later when Boston did the same in the AL. Add that to the long list of collapses witnessed by generations of devastated Boston fans.
In 1974, the Red Sox led the AL East by seven games on Aug. 23, but went 7-19 after that and finished third, seven games behind.
In 1978, they squandered all of a nine-game lead they had on Aug. 13, then rebounded to win their last eight games and force a one-game playoff against the Yankees. Boston led that game, 2-0, but the light-hitting Dent hit a three-run homer in a four-run seventh and New York won 5-4.
In 1986, the Red Sox were one strike away from a World Series championship after taking a 5-3 lead in the 10th inning of Game 6 against the Mets. But New York won 6-5 when Mookie Wilson's grounder went through first baseman Buckner's legs, allowing the winning run to score. Then, the Mets won Game 7.
Another crushing blow came in 2003 in Game 7 of the AL championship series when another Yankee infielder not known for his power, Aaron Boone, hit Tim Wakefield's first pitch in the 11th inning for a series-winning homer.
"I was terrified," Wakefield said later, "that I would be remembered like Buckner."
Papelbon coughed up another lead in the third and final game of the 2009 AL division series, giving up three runs that handed the Los Angeles Angels a 7-6 win.
"Who knows," he said after that game, "I may be replaying this on the TV in my weight room in the offseason and give me a little bit motivation for next season."
Now, he's in a similar spot — the brilliant closer who allowed the runs that ended his team's season.
"I don't think this is going to define me as a player, I don't think this is going to define this ballclub," said Papelbon, who can become a free agent this offseason. "I've always been one to bounce back. I'm not worried about myself, I'm not worried about anybody else in this clubhouse about bouncing back next year and going after it again."
There have been plenty of other teams remembered for their late-season swoons — the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1951 and 1962, the Chicago Cubs in 1969, the Angels in 1995. And, or course, the '07 Mets.
The Red Sox, desperate to make up for missing the playoffs in 2010, had a roster filled with very good players when this season began — Papelbon, Ortiz, Josh Beckett, Jacoby Ellsbury, Adrian Gonzalez, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, Carl Crawford, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz.
But they opened 2-10, and immediately questions started to surface.
Manager Terry Francona was able to calm the troops, though, and the Red Sox rebounded with an 82-44 mark over the next 4½ months.
And September started like a stroll to the postseason. On the first day of the month, they led the Yankees by 1½ games in the AL East, and the Rays by nine. They started Sept. 4 still nine games ahead of the Rays and one-half game behind the Yankees.
Now the season is over. Francona's eight-year run as manager may be finished as well after their 7-20 record in September.
To be fair, Francona and some of his current players are responsible for bringing the franchise two World Series titles. It's not like this is an organization without championships, an outfit known to be cursed. That label was shredded years ago.
But that doesn't take the sting out of the September Slide.
"What we did this month, it was horrible," Ortiz said. "I have been in bad situations before, and believe me, when these things happen and you drop down like we did, it stays in your head for a long time."
Just like Boston's other collapses.
Which collapse was worse, the '11 Braves, '11 Red Sox or '07 Mets? Sound off in the comments below...
(TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
