Boston's on a two-game winning streak! Break out the confetti and novelty cakes! Has anything been earned by those wins other than a bit of pride and a return to fourth place? Well, of course not. But a bit of pride is nice these days, and it at least puts us all in a slightly better mood as we pregame for Pats-Cardinals. The Red Sox are now 4-9 in September, a sad coda to a lost season. They're on pace to just about replicate last year's horrifying September, but clearly it's been a different animal this year. Last September was a sudden, unexpected collapse. This year, it's just the worst in a string of bad months.

2011 saw a Red Sox team that stumbled out of the gate, but recovered midseason. Boston went 72-37 over the middle four months of 2011, outscored their opponents by 170 runs over that span, and looked simply unbeatable. Then the wheels came flying off and the wagon burst into flames. It was awful, but there was at least some good baseball beforehand. 2012 has basically been a fiasco from the get-go. There were a few brief patches in May and June, and even a little bit around the All-Star break, when it looked like this team could contend. But they never did, and at this point the losing has pounded us into insensibility.

So for today's quick bit of discussion before the two afternoon games we'll all be watching: which is worse? Is the sudden heartbreak at season's end worse than the long, slow march into October irrelevance? Chat it up, and enjoy today's sportsballing.