You want to know what sucks?
Being afraid to watch baseball sucks.
Being afraid because you've been here before. Because you've seen summers of good feelings give way to some of the most disastrous finishes in the history of sports. Because every time you look at the standings you flash back to September of 2011 and see five giving way to four giving way to three, two, one. Because every game now feels like an opportunity to fall further than to overcome.
This sucks, Red Sox. It sucks because you're doing it in the same way, scoring ten in one game and zero the next. It sucks because we've all seen how a team that seems happy on the surface can be turned into a bunch of malcontents when looked at through a negative lens. And maybe the standard here isn't fair. Maybe this slump isn't as bad as it seems. But with 2011 so fresh, it's hard to take a coldly logical look at this.
This year wasn't about manifest destiny. There were no great expectations. Making a playoff push was pretty much just what the more optimistic among us hoped for. But you raised expectations, and that's incredible and wonderful and has made this year so much more entertaining. But if that was all done just to set us up for a fall? That's just too much.
I'm tired of looking at game time as an execution date. Please stop making it so hard to view it otherwise.