That series sort of perfectly summed up the year. First, no offense on the road. Then the offense picks up enough to actually win a game and the defense and pen (Paps) blows it. Was Abreu’s 8th inning ball in play ruled a double? That was a horrible play by Youk, and then later Pedroia blows a clear double play ball (with Morales running no less)-so a 5-2 lead becomes a 5-4 lead. Then with the seemingly important insurance run, Paps sill blows it with 2 outs. All year nothing was in sinc-if the offense was humming the pen would blow it. I would bet that our supposed “great” pen blew more big late inning leads than any other playoff team (save maybe Philly). Otherwise the offense was impotent and the defense was spotty all year.

Angels more than deserved it. Despite the HH trollery, I will be an Angel fan, it least for the ALCS.

You said it all in just a few paragraphs. Most people out here drank the Kool Aid all year and didn’t want to discuss obvious problems that this team clearly showed after the all star break. We were 20 games over .500 at the break and finished 28 games over at the end of the season. Not good. We scored 27 more runs than we did last year, but gave up 42 more than last year and finished with the exact same record. Our stats over the last three seasons have been pretty consistent across the board with the exception of Papi’s and Tek’s offensive decline. What this is telling me is that we simply aren’t putting a very talented team on the field when you look at the the other post season teams. And that definitely showed during this series.

This team needs a serious overhaul in every sense of the word. If their are big name players on the market we need to go after them and stop bragging about signing washed up pitchers for next to nothing. We have the payroll, so use it. This past off season was unsat in every way.

I don’t know the exact contract situations with Tek, Wake, Papi, Lowell and Drew, but they need to look seriously at what they plan on doing with them. The team Captain who can’t play at a high level anymore and a DH who hit in the .230s and wasn’t even hitting in the 3 or 4 spot in this series is never a good thing to have on your team. And I never saw what everyone was touting our bullpen about. I held my breath every time we used them. And in the end they were the reason we lost the series.

In the end this team needs to find its identity. It seems like their is no leadership in the clubhouse and no emotional leader among the players like Millar and Schilling were. And having said that you really need to start asking yourself if Tito is the right man for this job. Remember we fired Grady after he won 93 and 95 games and was one game away from the WS. I totally agreed with his firing, but I was a bit surprised at Tito’s hiring. He did nothing in 4 years in Philly. If we are going to put an above average talented team on the field- which is what we were this year- then we are going to need a more emotional leader. You need to look at some of the managers from the past who did great things with above average teams. Guys like Billy Martin in Oakland and his final years in NY; Tommy Lasorda in ‘88; LaRussa with the Chi Sox and in ’06 with the Cards; Zimmer with the ’89 Cubs. These were guys who could get the most out of their players and knew how to motivate. I don’t see Tito as being able to do that. He inherited a talented team and got more talent in ‘06. That talent is obviously dwindling. I really do believe that if we finish next year in the same fashion you’re going to need to look at the manager. I don’t want to see us be like the Braves and keep our manager around longer than we should. No hit on Bobby Cox, but that team needs to go in another direction. And maybe we do too.

Now maybe we’ll see some needed changes.

Yeah, I’m as dejected as anyone else, but the facts are …

1) We weren’t going to go on beating the Angels forever

2) Papelbon wasn’t going to be perfect forever (see Mariano Rivera, 1997 and what he did for the 3-4 years after that)

3) Now this FORCES us to get better for 2010

Yes, spring is 141 days away and we’ll be right back in the Hunt for a Red Sox October in 2010 … count on it

The Sox are still baseball’s BEST team this season, no matter what other team goes on to win the WS. But even the best teams still can – and do – lose a game or two. Or three. Also, keep in mind what the Angels must have felt these past few postseasons. Especially a good Angels team (with Mark Teixeira) that won 100 games last year, but lost to last year’s best team (Sox) in baseball.

History books: The Yankees beat up the Royals in the ALCS three straight years (1976-1978), until the Royals finally turned the tables on NY in 1980. It just goes to show: Sooner or later…the tide turns.

Now you can troll the Yankee boards freely!

by some thoughtful posters, who obviously care about the Red Sox and are intelligent enough to discuss the good-and-bad about the team in a mature manner. Too bad there are a couple of immature posters who can only name-call and use profanity, instead of talking like an adult.

Let’s trust Theo and the Sox brain trust, (and John Henry’s wallet, if need be) can make the right moves, without letting sentiment get in the way, and make us even a better team next year.

Bay had 36 homers and 119 RBIs, but he also struck out 162 times. Ortiz is pretty much finished. He’ll be a year older and slower and won’t be on roids. I might be a little contradictory here because we did score 27 more runs than last year, but we gave up 42 more runs than last year. We no longer have the 3-4 punch in the line up. And Ellsbury needs to be consistent enough to be the lead off hitter at all times.

I think that Beckett is starting to show signs of wearing down. He’s not the dominant guy who was out there in ‘07. A very bad second half along with back trouble down the stretch got me very concerned. Who knows how Wake will respond to off season back surgery. Dice K is not and never will be worth the money we paid for him. Lester needs to be consistent all year if he plans on being an elite starter (I still don’t think he’s quite there yet). Bucholtz needs to beef up and show that he can pitch an entire season without serious incident (arm fatigue in ’07?).

And the obvious questions about the bullpen need to be addressed. I like what the Yankee fan said about not giving up on Rivera after he imploded in the ’01 WS and the ’04 ALCS. I think Pap will do what he needs to do in the off season.

And we need every day players at their positions. Specifically, moving Youk between first and third. He is no third basement and this will screw up his chances of winning a gold glove if he isn’t at first all the time.

I think we may end up having an ‘06 type year because we still have players under contract who are pass their primes, but we can’t get rid of them (Ortiz and Lowell). Lowell’s numbers were pretty much identical to last year after his hip surgery, but that was because he didn’t play as much and we all know what happened with Ortiz.

I’m hurting pretty bad right now. I love this team more than anyone knows. I know that a lot of what I say is emotionally charged and sometime knee jerk, but I base it on what I see when I’m watching the games. This team just never jelled like it should have. It really came a part after the all star break. When we slumped we slumped really bad. And losing 8 of the last 14 was no way to end the season. Regardless of what past teams have done down the stretch you need to go into the post season with momentum.

Let’s get ’em next year

I still like you, buzzy

We need to be in FRONT of them. We need to bring more power to the plate than the Yankees. That’s how you win the AL East. Once again, the wild card isn’t going to cut it. And if the Rangers and Rays hadn’t imploded like they did we might not have even have made the post season. As for Ortiz, everyone knows what he did from June on, but think how much better this team would have been if could have done that all year. I watched him go 0 for 7 in a 12 inning game at Annaheim early in the year ( I live in Orange County and have to put up with Angel fans all the time). I agree better late than never, but that’s what he’s getting paid to do. Once again. we’re going to be stuck with older, slower players for at least one more year.

It’s that simple.

But right now we don’t have that and it doesn’t look like we’ll be having it for a couple more seasons.

Ah I forgot about the Mitchell Report. Whose board does he sit on? Also, the Big Puzzy gets a pass, my bad, thought we were talking about an even playing field.

Enjoy the sand your head is buried in.

“im just saying it was dumb of a yankee fan to try and use that, when they had more people taking roids than any other team”

Ok, so the key is the number of guys using and the fact that the Mitchell report is biased doesn’t factor into the equasion.

Thanks for clearing that up.

that is going too far with the policing.

Really. It is a tribute to Terry, the best manager I have seen wear our uniform and I started watching them when Higgins and Jurges did that, that this team won 95 games and got into the postseason. Beckett is not what he used to be; neither is Papelbon. Daisuke chose Japan over the Red Sox. Mike Lowell—-as dedicated a ballplayer as we have seen here in many years—-is barely able to scrape by. Bay homered a lot, but did not hit the way we expected. J.D. came on too late. Ortiz is useless, particularly against lefties. Ells and Pedroia have batting averages that are misleading since neither did much on the road.

There were bright spots: Daniel Bard is one of them. Clay Buchholz may not be as emotionally a wreck as he appeared to be, but we are not out of the woods yet and VMart was a definite upgrade.

I do not think we “lost” Texeira, who just used us against NY (not that there’s anything wrong with that). If we approach the offseason with a clear head, without putting eggs in a basket which was going elsewhere, we can recover, I think.. The foundation is there and this management team has got us in the post season almost every year since they showed up.

I am happy not to get swept by NY which was a very strong possibility had we survived LAA.