It's Over!!

Well, last night's events were tragic. So bad I had to wait 24 hours before writing.It felt like the Sox players should have started by shouting the old Roman gladiators' salute over the PA system: morituri te salutamus, which, according to my old Haverhill HS Latin teacher, Maggie McCormick, meant "those of us about to die, salute you." The Hose were leading well into the game, 3-2. Lester gave six solid innings of two run ball on three days rest. The Hose were hitting and putting men on base and while they were doing this, the Stripes were lambasting the Rays in Tampa, seven zip into the 8th inning. It looked like the Hose were finally going to make the post-season after all of September's aggravations--LOOKED LIKE. Then, in Baltimore they had a rain delay, effectively taking Lester out of the game. Nevertheless, the Sox hung on to that slim lead while the Rays tied the Stripes at seven--after being down to a final strike. It was that close! Bard came on for the 8th and was vintage Bard--what we've come to expect, not what we've suffered with these past few weeks. He threw a perfect 8th. Sox went fairly quietly in their half of the 9th and then The Laser came to slam the door. Two men up, two K's--most of his pitches like 95+ mph missiles. Then, the O's final batter gets down two strikes--does this seem scarily familiar to a paragraph above? Bang--a double. The next guy duplicates this and it's tied. The next batter comes up and lofts a soft liner to left field. Beantown's $142MM outfielder dashes in to grab it and end the inning--and muffs the grab. It's scored a single, but hit or error, it makes no diff. The winning O's run scores and the Sox are reduced to cheering on the Stripes en masse to somehow recover and beat back the Rays. Eventually, in the Trop they reach the home 12th and Longoria, who already had a 3 run blast to his credit on the evening lines a flat bullet towards the left field foul pole. Will it be fair or foul? Will it stay in or find a nest in the cheaps? As everyone knows by now, it was the worst of both worlds for the Sox--fair and in the cheaps. Game over, season over, wait six months for the Sox. How cruel is fate?
Brief notes: Gonzo didn't win either the batting crown or the RBI title, two things he'd led for more than three quarters of the season. He did hit .338 and have over 200 hits and 117 ribbies, as well as almost 50 two-baggers. He also provided some good leadership, a trait that will continue to be valuable next year. Jake ended up over .320, a 30-30 man with 32 HR's and 39 swipes. More importantly, due to the aforementioned success and his 200+ hits, he had the most total bases in the league. The Hose also had two other season .300 hitters: Big Papi, who missed 30 HR's by one and 100 ribbies by just a couple; and Pedey. The Dustman, valiantly trying to will the Hose home to victory got another homer and ended with 91 ribbies and another .300 plus BA. However, just as last year, the key injuries were collectively too much to overcome. Youk played very little during the final month's collapse--bursitis and a sports hernia (what's the diff from a non-sports hernia, anyway?)being too terrible a duet to overcome. The only three of the season starting rotation still able to throw by September being JB, Lester and Lackey hurt. Lackey was still throwing, but for most of the season, it was a case of the Sox needing an offensive explosion to keep him in range of a W. In fact, he's only the third pitcher in MLB history to finish a season with 10 wins or more who also had a 6 plus ERA--not a distinction one really craves in this game.
So, we go into the winter despairing of what might have been--and, by necessity, if nothing else, looking forward t 2012 and hoping that the team can regain that magic that carried it through the better part of the middle of the first decade of the new century.