Terry Francona was asked early in August whether his team was feeling any pressure to make its move in the playoff race.
In typical Francona fashion he cited an awareness of the next game on the schedule and nothing more.
The skipper said that he had yet to start “doing math” to figure out the Red Sox’ chances of reaching the postseason. He did, however, admit that if and when he does need to crunch some numbers the team is in trouble.
The team is in trouble.
While bigger comebacks have occurred several times throughout baseball history, including just a year ago when Minnesota erased a seven-game deficit in the final month before defeating Detroit in one-game playoff, any abacus, calculator or counting method you want to choose presents an uphill climb for the Red Sox, to say the least. Dropping two of three in Tampa Bay this weekend was a crushing blow.
Consider where it leaves Francona’s bunch.
Boston leaves Florida seven games out in the loss column with 31 games to play. If either Tampa Bay or New York, both of which have 32 games left, split their remaining games then the Red Sox would have to go 22-9 just to tie. And this is all if one of the two teams tied for the best record in major league baseball play .500 baseball for over a month, an unlikely scenario.
Perhaps an even unlikelier scenario is Boston playing .700-plus ball down the stretch. It has won as many as four straight games just once since mid-June, plays the majority of its remaining games on the road and finishes with seven away from home before hosting the Yankees for three, a daunting final flurry.
But just because the calculator is out it doesn’t mean that all hope is lost. The Sox had a 24-8 stretch earlier in the season and they can look to several great playoff pushes for inspiration, including the Twins’ remarkable run last September.
There were the 1951 New York Giants, who erased a 13-game deficit in the final 44 games. The 1964 St. Louis Cardinals were 11 out on Aug. 24 but won the National League pennant. Five years later the Miracle Mets overcame a 10-game deficit on Aug. 14. Seattle wiped away a 13-game gap to catch the Angels, then of California, in 1995. There are others.
What has also given Boston hope is the fact that the starting rotation, when on its game, can be stacked up against anyone else’s. In fact, it is superior to New York’s right now and just as good as Tampa’s.
Two problems.
One, the rotation has not always been on its game, John Lackey’s uneven performance Sunday night in Tampa the latest example. Lackey gave up five runs on nine hits in 6 1/3 innings.
Two, the offense that once provided support and then some for that rotation continues to trend toward being very ordinary as the games dwindle by without the likes of Kevin Youkilis, Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia, who may be done for the year.
Since Pedroia’s last game Aug. 18, the Red Sox have averaged 3.5 runs during a 5-5 stretch. They’ve scored a grand total of 10 runs in their last four games and seven in the three games in St. Petersburg.
A comeback of historic proportions will require not only a handful of quality starts, but also a lineup on par with the one that once tore through opponents for a solid three months earlier in the season.
That was an attack, complete with Pedroia and Youkilis, which set the pace in the major leagues in several offensive categories, often requiring a heavy dose of number-crunching to analyze just how good it was.
The number-crunching has taken on a different feel as Sept. 1 approaches. The kind that Terry Francona once feared.
