Tanner Houck explains why he has his skull on a necklace
Underdog: a competitor thought to have little chance of winning a fight or contest.
OK, now the word fits.
After Tuesday night's 6-2 loss to the Astros at Fenway Park, the Red Sox' odds to make the postseason according to Fangraphs stand at 6.9 percent. They are 6 1/2 games out of the final Wild Card spot, and are riding a starting pitching staff that has gotten five outs in the seventh inning this entire month.
After the game, there wasn't the kind of doom and gloom presented by Padres manager Bob Melvin ("There’s really no reason to even look at the standings at this point in time. It’s just, keep playing — keep playing and hope that something breaks that we haven’t been able to do basically the entire season.”) Alex Cora and his bunch are doing their best to put on a brave face.
“We’ve got tomorrow,” Cora told reporters. “We play tomorrow, and we’ve got to find a way to win. Then Thursday is off and then Friday [in Kansas City], we'll see where we’re at. [The Astros] are going to play their division. We still got some series against the division. We just have to play better baseball, we haven't done that. We are where we are because we’ve struggled in certain areas of the game and it’s catching up [to us] now.”
They continue to be uncomfortable bad defensively - as was put on display once again Tuesday night - with a bullpen that now has a 6.40 ERA in August, having thrown just 8 1/3 fewer innings than the starters.
But through all the ups and downs - and there have been plenty of them - it's hard to not identify five games that seemingly broke these Red Sox.
They knew going into the early-August series against the Blue Jays, a team directly in front of them in the Wild Card race, the three games were going to set the tone for the playoff chase. The Red Sox were swept. What could have been one game up, became five games out.
They also realized how important these games vs. the Astros were considering Houston was also the club standing between the Sox and that coveted No. 3 Wild Card spot. The result has been a resounding thud from the home side of things, with the Red Sox once again falling flat during this make-or-break moment.
Losses are losses, and sometimes it's simply about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it's hard to ignore how exactly these be-all, end-all games have unfolded for the Red Sox.
Against the Blue Jays, you rolled out two bullpen games, resulting in 20 of the 27 innings coming from relievers. It was a group that allowed 30 hits on 24 runs. Not ideal. And, considering the Sox' lot in life during that time, really inexcusable.
Then you had the series opener against the Astros in a series that was probably going to steer down the road you would be riding for the final month. What happened? The Red Sox were forced to rely on two pitchers - starter Chris Sale and reliever Kyle Barraclough - to somehow get to at least the eighth inning. Two pitchers. Biggest game. It didn't work out.
None of this reality can be put in one bucket, but it does feel that some of it could have been avoided. It just felt like one more reliable arm - starter (hello, Lance Lynn or Michael Lorenzen) or even reliever (hello, Keynan Middleton) would have altered this landscape, particularly when it counted the most.
Sure, it's a simplistic way to view things during what has been anything but a simple path to postseason consideration.
Injuries. Downturns. They both elements that are tough to avoid. But these five games do feel like real opportunities that weren't properly identified.
What's done is done. And now, with 29 games left, it sure seems the Red Sox now fit that description.
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