Boston Red Sox: Why Last September Should Give Them Hope for a Run This Fall

According to ESPN.com, the Boston Red Sox have a 4.3-percent chance of making the playoffs this season.

In other words, a snowball's chance in hell. A doughnut's chance in a cop car. A knife fighter's chance in a gun fight.

It doesn't help that Carl Crawford, who was hitting .282 with a solid .785 OPS, is going to miss the rest of the season due to Tommy John surgery on his left elbow (via MLB.com).

Meanwhile, David Ortiz is still recovering from an Achilles injury that he suffered over a month ago, and the club's starting rotation has an ERA near 5.00 in August. That same rotation will have to find its bearings under a new pitching coach in Randy Niemann, who has precious little time to work his magic after taking over for the fired Bob McClure (as reported by the AP).

Considering the circumstances, a 4.3-percent chance of making the postseason actually seems a little generous. Certainly the Red Sox are more doomed than that.

In all honesty, yeah, they probably are. I'd put their chances at more like one percent.

But you know what? A chance is a chance is a chance is a chance. The Red Sox are in the same boat as everyone else in the sense that they're in it until they're mathematically eliminated.

And after what happened last September, they should know better than to despair. 

September of 2011 was one of the wildest months in baseball history. In the end, what it proved was that it's easy to read and analyze the signs and plan for what's going to happen, but there's simply no predicting baseball. The baseball gods have minds of their own, and last September proved that they are an eccentric bunch with a keen appreciation for the weird.

The baseball gods made many weird things happen last September, and these things go to show why there's still hope for the Red Sox to make a run this fall.

Observe...

Look What Happened to the Red Sox

Bill Parcells once said that you are what your record says you are.

If so, then the 2011 Red Sox were the best team in the American League on September 1, 2011. They had a record of 83-53, giving them a half-game advantage over the New York Yankees for the best record in the AL.

They were on pace to win 99 games at that point in time, and there was little reason to think they wouldn't get there. They seemed to have it all.

They certainly had offense. Last year's Red Sox ended up scoring more runs than any team in baseball, and they were heading into September fresh off a month of August that saw them score 143 runs, second only to the Yankees.

To boot, Boston's starting rotation posted a 3.97 ERA last August, more than good enough to win ballgames given the kind of thunder the Sox were packing on offense. 

It was easy for Red Sox fans to rest easy. In order for the 2011 Red Sox to miss out on October baseball, everything was going to have to go wrong.

Well, you know what Murphy's law states: What can go wrong will go wrong.

That's precisely what happened. The offense continued to perform, but no amount of runs the Red Sox could score on a given night was enough to make up for the collapse of the pitching staff. Boston starters posted a 7.08 ERA and lost 13 games in September, and the bullpen lost seven games of its own while posting a 4.45 ERA.

A half-game lead in the AL East on September 1 turned into a 2.5-game deficit on September 10. Boston's 4.5-game lead in the wild-card race on that date shrunk to two games by September 20 and one game by September 25. 

Heading into the final day of the regular season, September 28, the Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays were tied atop the AL wild-card race. Everyone knows happened next.

Everyone knows what happened after the season was over, too. It turns out that the starting pitchers who were largely responsible for that 7.08 ERA in September were eating chicken and drinking beer in the clubhouse, and then-manager Terry Francona either didn't care enough or didn't have enough authority to stop them. For that matter, he didn't have enough authority to do anything, really.

The details of exactly what went on behind the scenes while the Red Sox were going 7-20 in September vary depending on which member of the 2011 club is telling the story, but what's obvious is that the team as a whole grew complacent.

By the time the Red Sox realized they had to fight to save their season, they simply weren't capable of fighting as hard as the Rays and other teams which actually took the final month of the season seriously.

If it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone.

Look What Happened to the Braves

The Red Sox weren't the only team that collapsed last September. The Atlanta Braves went through a collapse of their own, one that Braves fans will tell you was just as brutal as Boston's.

On September 1, 2011, the Braves held an 8.5-game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League wild-card race. At 81-55, Atlanta actually had the NL's second-best record, after the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Braves were on pace to win about 97 games.

To boot, the Braves were coming off a month of August in which they went 17-9. Dan Uggla and Chipper Jones both posted OPSs over 1.000, and Tim Hudson, Brandon Beachy and Mike Minor combined to go 9-1.

Just like with the Red Sox, everything seemed to be golden for the Braves heading into September. Naturally, Murphy's law struck them too.

Several major problems afflicted the Braves last September. One involved their offense going back in the toilet, as Braves hitters hit just .235 and scored only 87 runs. Their starting pitching also struggled, going 6-9 with a mediocre 4.55 ERA.

Worse, Braves starters logged only 146.1 innings last September, leaving the team's bullpen, which already had a lot of mileage on it to begin with, to pick up the slack.

The bullpen didn't have enough gas to make it the rest of the way. Braves relievers lost an MLB-high nine games in September. Craig Kimbrel blew three saves, including one on the final day of the season against the Philadelphia Phillies that led to a loss.

That loss was the fifth in a row for the Braves to close out the season, and it allowed the Cardinals to sneak in and steal the NL Wild Card.

There were no reports of chicken and beer in the clubhouse, and the collapse did not lead to a massive shakeup of Atlanta's infrastructure, as Boston's did. In fact, compared to what happened after the Red Sox put the cap on their own collapse, there wasn't a whole lot of finger pointing to go around in Atlanta.

It helped that the causes of Atlanta's collapse had less to do with clubhouse drama and more to do with the numbers. It's simply hard to win ballgames when your offense can't score runs, your starters can't eat innings and your bullpen just plain runs out of gas.

But the point is the same: If these things can happen to the Braves, they can happen to anyone.

Look What the Rays Were Able to Do

Even after going 18-10 in the month of August, the Rays didn't look like they had much of a shot at qualifying for the postseason in 2011. They stood 8.5 games behind the Yankees in the AL wild-card race on September 1, and they were on pace to win only about 88 games.

But the Rays were definitely in good shape heading into the season's final month. Their offense had its best month in August, scoring 121 runs with 36 home runs. Their starting-pitching staff posted a 2.97 ERA, and the team as a whole allowed only 87 runs all month.

If the Rays could keep this up, they would at least be able to stay within shouting distance of the Yankees. The Red Sox, too, if they happened to switch places with the Yankees.

Sure enough, the Rays offense kept hitting, scoring 132 runs on the strength of 34 home runs. Rays starters weren't quite as sharp, posting a 3.74 ERA, but the bullpen more than picked up the slack. Rays relievers won six games last September and posted a solid 3.28 ERA.

Once they had the Red Sox in their sights in the wild-card race, the Rays did themselves a huge favor by owning the Red Sox in their head-to-head matchups. They swept a three-game series from the Red Sox at Tropicana Field early in the month and then went on to take three of four from the Red Sox at Fenway Park just a few days later.

You won't get either club to admit anything, but one assumes the Rays cared about winning those games far more than the beer-guzzling, chicken-munching Red Sox did. The Red Sox were losing games off their wild-card lead, sure, but there was no cause for alarm.

The fact that the Rays lost four of five late in September probably helped the Red Sox relax a little bit, but the Rays certainly didn't relax. They ended the season on a five-game winning streak, and they refused to be beaten even after falling behind the Yankees 7-0 on the final day of the season.

The Rays basically just didn't quit. They kept playing, kept fighting, kept winning. In the end, they got what they had been fighting for.

If they can do that, anyone can.

Look What the Cardinals Were Able to Do

The obvious difference between the 2011 Rays and the 2012 Red Sox is that the Rays didn't start their run when the calendar turned to September. They started playing their best baseball in August and didn't slow down once September began.

The Red Sox aren't doing that. They're 6-12 in August, and things are getting worse rather than better.

To this end, the 2011 Cardinals are more relevant to the predicament the Red Sox currently find themselves in.

The 2011 Cardinals were never really a bad team. Their problem was that they were never really a good team, either, as they struggled to stay high above the .500 mark for much of the season.

At one point last August, the Cardinals lost seven of nine games and fell to 10.5 games behind the Braves in the wild-card race. The idea that they were poised to go on a run would have been met with laughter had you dared to utter it aloud.

But the Cardinals finished August by winning five out of six, which allowed them to salvage the month with a record of 15-13, despite the fact they allowed eight more runs than they scored.

St. Louis pitching settled down again in September. Cardinals starters posted an ERA under 3.00 and won 10 games, and they were able to win ballgames despite the fact that their bullpen posted a 4.56 ERA for the month.

This was largely thanks to the Cardinals offense, which produced a .294 average and 128 runs. Albert Pujols, Lance Berkman, Yadier Molina and Allen Craig all finished the season strong.

So did Chris Carpenter, who went 3-0 with a 2.15 ERA and a pair of complete-game shutouts in six September starts.

Just like the Rays, the Cardinals did themselves a favor by beating up the team they were pursuing. They swept a three-game series against the Braves in early September.

They finished the month by winning four of five, sealing the NL Wild Card thanks to Carpenter's second shutout of the month, on the final day of the season, and Kimbrel's poorly timed blown save in Atlanta.

The 2012 Red Sox are a veteran team that is hoping to come together for an impressive run in September. In this sense, they should idolize the 2011 Cardinals, a veteran team that came together and went on an impressive run.

And if they can do it...well, you know how it goes.

What It All Means for the Red Sox

Compared to the 2011 Rays and the 2011 Cardinals, the 2012 Red Sox have it easy.

At the moment, they're only seven games out in the wild-card race, and this year there are two wild-card spots for the taking. The three teams ahead of them in the race—Oakland, Detroit and Los Angeles—all have their various shortcomings.

So do the Red Sox, of course. Crawford is going to be missed, and Niemann is faced with the seemingly impossible task of fixing a pitching staff that has been a mess ever since Opening Day.

But let's say he does that. And for kicks, let's say that David Ortiz comes back and starts hitting like he was before and that Adrian Gonzalez and Dustin Pedroia stay hot. Perhaps Jacoby Ellsbury will revert to his 2011 form, and perhaps Andrew Bailey will settle into the closer's role that he was acquired to play this offseason.

In a season in which just about everything has gone wrong, there are still plenty of things that can go right. And if the stories of the 2011 Rays and Cardinals are any indication, there's still plenty of time for these things to go right.

And indeed, there's still plenty of time for things to go wrong for other teams in the race.

For example, how much longer can the Yankees keep winning games with an injury-depleted roster and a lineup full of aging players? Is Angels pitching a lost cause? How much longer can the Orioles keep winning games despite their lack of starting pitching and their overworked bullpen? How much longer can Oakland hang around with the talent they have in tow?

And so on. 

For the time being, that 4.3-percent chance of making the playoffs still looks accurate. But until the counter reads zero, you can't rule out the baseball gods doing something weird.

And this time, they may choose to reward the Red Sox rather than punish them. 

Note: Stats, standings, etc., come from Baseball-Reference.com.

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