Here’s the best thing we can say about the 2010 Red Sox [team stats] season: It laid the groundwork for what’s shaping up to be one heck of a 2011.
General manager Theo Epstein has long had this offseason circled as one that could remake the franchise. With Padres slugger Adrian Gonzalez expected to be available via trade and speedster Carl Crawford hitting free agency, Epstein’s dream Plan A was to land both.
The odds of that seemed unlikely, to be kind. But then 2010 happened, with its torrent of injuries running inversely proportional to the buzz surrounding the team. The more players got hurt, the less fans seemed to care. NESN’s ratings plummeted. Ticket sales stagnated. Interest waned.
It was certainly enough to get the attention of the team’s ownership. Tom Werner went on the radio and guaranteed the squad would make a big trade and free agent signing. John Henry sniped via Twitter at a writer who said the group’s purchase of Liverpool in the English Premier League would affect the Red Sox’ bottom line. Marketing czar Sam Kennedy only half-jokingly implored Epstein, his former high school teammate, to make a splash.
Did fear of losing market share drive ownership to open the purse strings even more than they did during a record-setting (at least payroll-wise) 2010? We’ll probably never know for sure, but what’s clear is that when Epstein called Werner and Henry in the middle of the night in England to close the Crawford deal, they both gave him an unequivocal yes.
And now 2010 seems like a distant memory, which is what it deserves. The Red Sox played admirably and managed to remain on the fringes of contention into mid-September, but reality was reality.
No Dustin Pedroia [stats]. No Kevin Youkilis [stats]. No Jacoby Ellsbury [stats]. No Mike Cameron. No Jason Varitek [stats].
No chance.
“There’s disappointment that we didn’t get where we wanted to go,” admitted manager Terry Francona on the final day of the season. “We didn’t reach our ultimate goal of getting to the playoffs and trying to do some damage in October. That said, there’s still a lot to be proud of in the way these guys played right to the end. They overcame a lot along the way. So, mixed feelings. We’re proud of the effort and proud of some of the things we accomplished, but still disappointed in the ultimate goal.”
The season took a turn for the worse almost right out of the gate during an 11-14 start that dropped the Sox seven games out of first just a month into the season. As late as May 17, the Red Sox remained under .500 at 19-20.
They finally kicked things into gear in June, drawing within a half game of first on July 3. But in the equivalent of an NBA team allowing a pair of 3-pointers in the final 10 seconds of the half, the last seven games before the All-Star break were disastrous. The Sox went 2-5 to enter intermission five games out of first.
They never recovered.
It hardly matters now. With Gonzalez playing first, Crawford manning left, and a rebuilt bullpen featuring Bobby Jenks and Dan Wheeler, the Red Sox might just own the best lineup, the best rotation, and the best bullpen in the American League.
That’s all on paper, of course, but when things look that good on paper at this time of year, the goals are pretty simple — World Series or bust.
The 2010 season drifted into the ether almost the second it ended. The hope looking forward is that the 2011 season lives forever.
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