As the Denial Fades, the Pain Remains

Last night, the Rays handled the Red Sox and rolled into the World Series. They did it with an overpowering starter who, all strops and headcase reactions aside, could become one of the best in baseball. They did it with a closer who had never close a game before, but may be the  best pitching prospect in baseball (who said losing never pays?). They did it the right we, and Boston just got flat out beat.

So why hadn't I been posting about this string of crazy events that led to this inexplicable Game 7 ... and it's subsequent Red Sox meltdown? Like so many superstitious Sox fans I thought I was on to something. Maybe checking in on the blog was bad luck, so I did away with it, hoping to spur on Boston and then resume blogging in the World Series.

Evidently it came up one or two Jason Varitek hits short.

Was it a memorable series? Absolutely. It was beyond that. But that doesn't make the Game 7 loss that much easier, particularly considering Jon Lester's strong start less than a week after he was shelled by the same team.

In fact, no matter how one tries to step back from the scene and take everything in, it's impossible not to be struck with the distinct feeling that, as good as the Red Sox were at times during the year, and as good as they were against the Angels in the ALDS, they just ran out of bullets. Missing Mike Lowell and a legitimate fourth playoff pitcher -- check out Tim Wakefield's splits in recent ALCS performances and you'll see what I mean -- they just didn't have the ammunition to go seven games with the Rays. Somehow they got there anyway, and the Rays came up with just enough plays to get through.

Will the Sox bounce back? Sure. But the franchise faces a lot of difficult offseason decisions about it's future. We'll be analyzing those in significantly more detail in the days to come. For now, we're going to go back to prying to pretend last night -- and much of the last nine months against the Rays, for that matter -- never happened.

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