Karma KO's Red Sox

As I’ve stated many times over the hundreds of NFL jerseys cyber-columns I’ve written on all things baseball, I’m not a Red Sox fan. Never was, never will be. So I’ll apologize in advance to my good friends Geoff Macht, Dr. John Rubinow, Glenn Torrence and Russ Whinnem, as well as the countless hundreds of thousands of other members of the Red Sox Nation.
From the Blue Jays perspective, you got what was coming to you.
You see, the fortunes of this team, in my mind, changed less than two weeks ago.
In the midst of a three-game sweep at the hands of the woeful Blue Jays – the last thing that the team ever did to make their former general manager smile – Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon drilled Adam Lind – who had hit three home runs earlier in the game – on the right elbow with a first-pitch fastball with two out in the top of the ninth. The plunking effectively ended the Blue Jays’ left fielder/DH’s dream season in which he set career-highs in every important offensive category.

Papelbon’s laser-guided heater also led to Roy Halladay’s measured response one night later when he showed that the Jays would no longer tolerate having their hitters used for target practice by drilling David Ortiz with a first-pitch fastball in an eventual 12-0 beatdown by the visitors. The Blue Jays had already been in a scrap with the Yankees a couple of weeks prior over similar indiscretions, and they certainly weren’t going to allow the other bully in the A.L. East to get off without some payback.
What transpired on that Tuesday night at Fenway led to a change in karma for the 2009 Red Sox. I don’t ever mind if Papelbon wants to drill any number of Yankees’ hitters during any of their 18 made-for-TV meetings that MLB deems so vital that the unfair, unbalanced schedule has to continue.
It will be interesting to see the reaction of Red Sox Nation towards Papelbon after their daily hangover lifts. Before Sunday, he hadn’t allowed an earned run during his 17-game, 26-inning post-season career. He was the most automatic playoff closer not named Mariano Rivera. But in the span of eight hitters and 32 pitches on a crisp New England Sunday afternoon, Papelbon allowed two inherited runners to score in the eighth and then three of his own to plate in the ninth. Game, set and match, with the Angels moving on to New York and a date with the Yankees, while the Red Sox and their fans sit in stunned disbelief.

And while Papelbon will shoulder most of the blame, as he should for bringing on the bad karma in the first place, any number of Boston hitters should be taking a long, hard look at themselves in the broken clubhouse mirror.
Let’s see, where do I start? I guess a glance at yesterday’s lineup is as good a place to start as any. Dustin Pedroia, the reigning A.L. MVP, hit .167 in the series. Victor Martinez, brought over from the Indians at the trade deadline, hit .182. Clean-up hitter Kevin Youkilis hit just .083. Good Canadian boy Jason Bay, the team leader with 36 home runs and 119 RBI in the regular season, hit just .125. And finally Big Papi Ortiz’s forgettable season, which began by hitting just one home run in his first 36 games and was later derailed mid-season with word that he failed a drug test in 2003, closed with just a solitary single in 12 at-bats against the Angels.
As a team, the vaunted Red Sox offence, ranked fourth in the A.L. during the regular season, had more strikeouts (16) than hits (15) during the sweep. They were beaten by a better team, plain and simple.
In the end, the Red Sox only played three more games than the Blue Jays, all losses and they ended their season on equal footing with the Jays: on a three-game losing streak.
You can blog all you want to vent your frustration, but when all is said and done, Sweet Caroline this and Dropkick Murphy that. I’m sure Adam Lind’s elbow feels a little better this morning.
And how’d the Patriots do this week, by the way?
Those teams have as intense a rivalry as you’ll see in any sport. And when you face each other as many times as these teams do – under the bright spotlights of the game of the week – there are going to be heated moments, like Pedro Martinez spiking Don Zimmer to the turf or Jason Varitek and Alex Rodriguez going toe-to-toe. But what happened between Papelbon and Lind that night was unwarranted, unneeded and inappropriate. It also led to the Red Sox quick exit from the 2009 post-season, ruining the plans at MLB head office for yet another Yankees/Red Sox ALCS showdown.