Mercifully the 2012 Boston Red Sox baseball season ended last Wednesday. It was painful and embarrassing to be a fan this year. What follows is some of how the team went from 90 wins in 2011 to their woeful 69-93 record this year .The first low point for me occurred when the Sox were cruising along in the 6th inning with a 9-0 lead against the New York Yankees. It was very early in the season April 21st when the Yankees would score 15 unanswered runs. Little did I know that kind of snowball effect would become a recurring theme. No lead was safe and those come from behind walk-off wins were as scarce as hen’s teeth.
Bobby Valentine was the new anti Teri Francona manager. The first fatal mistake we observed was when he called out Kevin Youkillis for what amounted to lack of concentration and passion. Youk was coming back from an injury riddled 2011 season and was soon to be traded. Bobby V’s mistakes were innumerable. After much heralded rookie 3rd baseman, Will Middlebrook, committed his second error in the same inning Valentine was heard to say “Nice inning, Will” How to be supportive and build the kid’s confidence! We learned much later that in spring training he had called out Mike Aviles during an infield drill. This led to several players meeting with Valentine in support of their teammate.
Another move which didn’t sit well with teammates was when lefty Jon Lester was kept in a game by Valentine as he gave up 11 runs. It was July 22nd and the opponent was Toronto. Lester had a 5 run 1st inning. By the time he left after 4 innings he had given up 9 runs. Then we hear about Adrian Gonzalez and other players requesting a meeting with the owners. Apparently they felt that Lester was mistreated and they were taking their complaint to management.
Valentine was never able to build any rapport or respect with his players until it was much too late. In addition several of his coaches were openly rebellious and simply didn’t speak to him. This lack of communication with pitching, bench and bullpen coaches proved costly. To be fair Valentine did not have the courtesy from management of choosing his own coaching staff. Perhaps he never really had a chance to succeed. Sabotage at the outset?
Then we had the block-buster trade between the Red Sox and LA Dodgers on August 25th. Pitcher Josh Beckett, 1st baseman Adrian Gonzalez, injured outfielder Carl Crawford and reserve infielder Nick Punto to LA. Coming to Boston 1st baseman James Loney, pitcher Allen Webster, infielder Ivan de Jesus Jr. and the time honored “two players to be named later.”
The trade is note-worthy for the $250M the Red Sox were able to dump in salary. Finally the front office was honest and by this action admitted that the Sox would not make the playoffs for the third year in a row. Now the task is to use the money judiciously to build a winner. The need is particularly acute in pitching as the Red Sox pitchers had a combined ERA in 2012 of 4.70 which ranked 27th in MLB!
Needless to say Bobby Valentine was fired some 14 hours after Game 162 a loss counting as their 8th in a row and 12th of their final 13 - Yikes. Fittingly the season ended with a 14-2 loss to the New York Yankees. Hopefully it also marked the end of Daisuke Matsuzaka's career with the Sox. He gave up 5 runs in 2.1 innings and finished with an 8.28 ERA in 11 games after coming back from Tommy John surgery.
Now the search for a new manager begins. I hope one is in place before the team starts signing players. That way the manager will have a say in which players come to Boston and maybe a chance to have some success in 2013. I’ll be waiting for Truck Day, Spring Training and Opening Day 2013. My prediction is that the Boston Red Sox will find their way back to be the winning team we are all hoping to see.
