Red Sox’s playoff dream may be dead, but maybe it’s for the best

COMMENT

After a weekend like that, and looking ahead to a week like this, it’s hard not to feel that this enjoyable Red Sox adventure has begun its final approach to its logical conclusion.

Perhaps, given our winter anxiety about the team’s apparent priorities, this is for the best.

In the immediate future, this feeling is not new. When Boston was swept by the Dodgers after the All-Star break, they led in all three games. They stalled against the Yankees and Houston. They won two games in Baltimore. I looked into the conversations against just about everyone.

Alas, that doesn’t equate to October. And reaching the sixth inning Friday and Sunday, and being within a few hits of each other Saturday, doesn’t change the fact that Arizona, the better team, repeatedly found the gas pedal and left the young upstart in its taillights.

“We’re still in a good position. We’re still well into the race,” Rafael Devers told reporters Sunday after hitting his 200th home run. “We just have to turn the page and be ready for the next series and win some more games. There’s a lot of games left in the season.”

That’s right: 33 for the Red Sox (67-62). Their best result in such a long stretch came before the All-Star break, when they went 22-11. If that were repeated, it would mean 89 wins.

It feels like that should be enough with three wild cards per league, but a 4.5-game hole means Kansas City and Minnesota (tied at 72-58) can match that with barely .500 baseball.

The Sox are feeling a bit terminal after another bad home run. They are 29-35 at Fenway and are finishing their first consecutive full season with a losing record at home since 1965-66.

The Globe’s Alex Speier has done some good research on why Boston struggles at Fenway. There are no simple answers, but “they hit too often” and “they make too many mistakes” are safe phrases, regardless of location.

Against the Diamondbacks, things were simpler. Brayan Bello gave up four walks Friday — two immediately after back-to-back singles, and the last one following three straight hits in the decisive sixth inning. Kutter Crawford was better Saturday, but Lucas Sims and Brennan Bernardino gave up four walks (plus a wild pitch) in a two-run seventh inning.

Sims has struggled with his walks in Cincinnati. As The Ringer’s Brian Barrett noted, he’s 180th out of 199 relievers in walk rate since the trade deadline.

Tanner Houck allowed four walks on Sunday, all in his last three innings. Three of them scored, the last on Eugenio Suarez’s second home run of the series and the last on a 10-RBI weekend.

“With men in scoring position, he might not have wanted to throw that, but I was ready for that breaking ball,” Suarez told Diamondbacks TV on Sunday, “and he threw it right there down the middle.”

Home runs are a major problem, of course. Sox pitchers gave up 40 in August, the worst total in the sport. The fact that Suárez came up on a first-pitch breaking ball (Houck’s favorite offering overall, and one of only two (along with the sinker) where Houck throws the first pitch to righties) made me wonder if opposing hitters aren’t adjusting and hunting.

The results are inconclusive, but notable. The Red Sox allowed 13 first-pitch home runs in August, more than a third of their 31 this season and a jump above the staff’s overall struggles. Four were allowed by Nick Pivetta, among his eight first-pitch home runs this season, tied for the second-worst total in the major leagues.

Most of the hitters, though, have been on Pivetta’s second pitch, with just two on the fastball he throws nearly half the time. Houck’s other first-pitch home run this month, at Texas, came on a bad splitter. Gunnar Henderson homered off Bello in Baltimore to end five hitless innings. It might be nothing.

Regardless, the pitchers appear to be at rock bottom heading into what is essentially five games against Toronto, with just three days off remaining — the last on Sept. 26, when just one series remains against the Rays.

Triston Casas has come back strong from his injury. Trevor Story looks like he could reemerge before the end of the year. It’s a shame neither can provide more than five innings once a week.

And yet, there is no shame in this group, in this year that ends on September 29. Their best case in February did not seem much further than that, and that was before the absences of Lucas Giolito, Garrett Whitlock, Casas and Story that we all know by heart.

This season was something where it seemed there was nothing. Something It comes from within, although a year of success within the system will also include another season of Marcelo Mayer done too soon.

As I said before, maybe it’s for the best. I’m not convinced that thousands of empty seats and lower NESN ad rates will be enough to motivate people to change course in the Jersey Street offices… a hot night at the park is still an attraction, no matter how bitter people try to be about it.

The Red Sox’s attendance has remained virtually flat this year, ranking 11th in the major leagues at 33,022 per game. They’ve had to sell out like they haven’t in a long time, but they’ve done it, and the prices charged by those who don’t follow closely always make you cry.

A playoff appearance after breaking a promise to “give it your all” always seemed a little out of place, even knowing that the days at the top of the salary list are probably gone forever. And that? They just need a little bit more. Or maybe we’ll go further and say, “They just need a little bit more.”

Enjoy Danny Jansen Day. Enjoy the time this group has left. Enjoy the fact that while all may seem lost these days, the best days may yet be ahead.