After Saturday's emotionally charged win, there seemed to be time for one last gasp in the Boston Red Sox's 2024 season.
It lasted for all of 24 hours.
In a painful 5-2 loss at Yankee Stadium on Sunday afternoon, the Red Sox made all their usual mistakes. You can't do that against your arch-rivals, and the New York Yankees were happy to take all the gifts the Red Sox gave them en route to the win.
First, starting pitcher Kutter Crawford allowed the home run ball to bite him once again. Gleyber Torres clipped him on a short porch job in the bottom of the third, then Aaron Judge unloaded on a middle-middle fastball for a 445-foot moonblast off the restaurant in deep center field.
Crawford has now allowed 33 home runs this season, including 19 after the All-Star break. No other pitcher has allowed more than 29 for the year, nor more than 14 since the intermission.
Then, Boston continually failed to capitalize with runners in scoring position. They went 0-for-9 in those situations, including a crucial opportunity with Connor Wong on third and one out in the top of the sixth. As insult to injury, Jarren Duran grounded into one last double play to end it with runners on first and second.
The Red Sox have the second-most strikeouts as a team with runners in scoring position this season (372), behind only the Milwaukee Brewers. Their .252 team batting average in such situations ranks 17th.
Then, as the cherry on top, the Boston defense let them down one more time this season. Second baseman Romy González booted a routine double play ball that could have ended the bottom of the seventh. Giancarlo Stanton's ensuing sac fly gifted the Yankees a vital insurance run.
It was the Red Sox's 108th error of the season, two more than the second-worst team, the Miami Marlins.
The loss dropped the Red Sox back to .500 at 75-75, and 4 1/2 games behind the Minnesota Twins for a Wild Card spot with only 12 games to play.
Sunday's game will ultimately represent the story of the 2024 Red Sox--a team that had the talent to make a playoff appearance, but couldn't stay out of their own way.
And worst of all, the Red Sox had a chance to assert themselves the day after talking a whole bunch of smack about the Yankees in the postgame press conference. Manager Alex Cora even continued the smack talk into Sunday morning, saying Gerrit Cole might have galvanized his team's playoff run.
There will be no playoff run for Cora and his team. For the third year in a row, they've played themselves out of contention when the league gave them every opportunity to stay in the hunt.
