A historic collapse

In the evening of August 31, the Red Sox had the best record in the American League. That evening, they had a one and a half game lead of the Yankees for first place in their division. As they went to bed that night, they had a nine game lead over the third-place Tampa Bay Rays. Everything seemed rosy as they fell asleep that night. The Red Sox were beating the Yankees most of the time and everything seemed to be going well. At the beginning of the season, they had been picked, by some, to get to the World Series.

Then, September happened.

They started the month by losing to the Yankees. Players got hurt. Pitchers had trouble pitching for more than a few innings. They dropped out of first place. While they had a relatively easy schedule in the month, they didn't win a single series against any team that month. The Red Sox only won seven games the entire month.

On the final day of the season, they had given up their nine game lead for the wild card position in the play-offs and were tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for that last spot in the play-offs. All they had to do was beat the team in last place in their division while the Rays lost to the first place team in the division. The Red Sox were ahead in their game and the Rays were losing 7 - 0 in their game. It looked like the Red Sox were going to limp into the play-offs.

But they didn't. The Red Sox gave up their lead in the ninth inning and the Rays stormed back to win their game in the 12th inning. And that was it. History was made and we'll be telling our grandchildren about it. The Red Sox are back to the way they were in the 20th Century. And we saw it.

While I finished writing this and actually posted this in September 29, I'm labeling this post with the date September 28 when the collapse completed.