Boston Red Sox: Why Beer-Drinking Had Zero Effect on Their Collapse Last Season

Drinking in the clubhouse wasn't the issue for the Boston Red Sox last season.

Many believe pitchers Josh Beckett, John Lackey and Jon Lester eating fried chicken and drinking beer in the clubhouse on the days they weren't pitching tore the team apart.

Do you think Dustin Pedroia, Adrian Gonzalez and other position players even noticed? I highly doubt Gonzalez's late-season struggles can be attributed to the fact that Beckett wasn't waving his pom-poms in the dugout cheering him on.

Most of the time, when you see pitchers in the dugout on their off days, they either look bored and miserable or are pulling pranks on their teammates, which one could argue is distracting them from the game. Personally, I'd rather have them hanging out in the clubhouse preparing for their next start than doing absolutely nothing in the dugout.

Baseball, more than any other team sport, is an individual game. Players zone out everything around them and focus on their own performance. When you're at the plate, it’s just you and the pitcher; none of your teammates can help you.

The team didn't lose their nine-game wild-card lead because of players drinking in the clubhouse. The team collapsed because they failed to produce throughout the month of September.

Carl Crawford, who signed a seven-year, $142 million deal with the Red Sox prior to the 2011 season, was atrocious not only in September, but for the entire season. Crawford batted .255 with 11 home runs and a putrid OPS of .289. His struggles were a major factor in the team failing to reach the postseason.

The team also had no depth in their starting rotation during the month of September. They had hoped that Clay Buchholz would be back from the DL during the final month of the season, but his injury was more serious than the team originally thought and left a major hole in the Red Sox's rotation.

Boston was forced to consistently start unproven rookie Kyle Weiland (a 25-year-old past his prime), knuckleballer Tim Wakefield and John Lackey, who posted a league-worst 6.41 ERA last season.

I understand why new manager Bobby Valentine is banning drinking in the clubhouse this season. He realizes the Boston media and Red Sox fans believe that this was a driving force in the team missing out on the playoffs last season, and he doesn’t want to deal with a firestorm of criticism for allowing this to occur again.  

Valentine says he would have done this regardless of last season’s circumstances, but what happened in 2011 had to have been the driving force in his decision.  

Every team in the MLB had players drinking alcohol in the clubhouse last year. However, the media targeted the Red Sox players participating in this activity due to the team's monumental breakdown.

The team’s poor late-season performance was the reason for the Red Sox's failure to make the playoffs in 2011. Beckett, Lackey and Lester probably should have been in the dugout cheering their teammates on, but the fact that they weren't had no effect on the team's collapse.