Summarizing the Sox: Hello Offseason My Old Friend

It’s Week-In-Review time! Here’s what was happening in Red Sox Nation, 10/3/22 - 10/9/22.

Record

3-0 for the week, 78-84 for the year

That’s a nice way to put a bow on things. The Red Sox swept the Rays in three games and needed just 23 innings to do it, thanks to a rain-shortened win last Tuesday.

Run Differential

+10 for the week, -52 for the year

Again, this was a nice way to end the year but it felt like putting lipstick on a pretty glaringly ugly pig.

Player of the Week

J.D. Martinez

Major League Baseball helped make this decision for me when they named J.D. AL player of the Week. His numbers speak for themselves: .353 average, four homers and seven RBI.

Does this late power surge make you more bullish on maybe bringing him back? I’m not sold but hey, I appreciate the effort. J.D. already did so much for the Red Sox that I won’t harbor any hard feelings if he moves on.

Play of the Week

Just six players - Ted Williams, David Ortiz, Rico Petrotcelli, Bobby Doerr, Trot Nixon and Jim Rice - have hit more grand slams as a Red Sox than Xander Boegarts.

Please don’t let this be the end, please don’t let this be the end, please don’t let this be the end (but if it is, that’s a pretty nice way to go out).

Nemesis of the Week

The unceasing passage of time

It’s pretty funny the ways coaches or players will try to brush off a bad loss or season. When the Bills lost to the Dolphins the other week I saw a quote from a Bills coach who said they didn’t lose, they just “ran out of time”. What a line. I love it so much. Imagine being so deep in denial that you blame perhaps the most basic confines of a game — time.

Well, I don’t have to imagine, because the clock is what I find myself most displeased with at the moment. This is an old baseball cliche. The season itself acts like a clock - the renewal of spring brings a new year and it slowly gets colder as the season dies.

Here we are. It’s getting colder, and the Red Sox’s core is on the chopping block. I’ve dreaded this winter for a while and I knew it was coming, but I doubt that will make it any easier.

Favorite Red Sox Content

Please enjoy a glimpse into 1980s Eck. My personal favorite entry is “It’s dynamite!”.

Dennis Eckersley Quote of the Week

This one hit me hard. I think Eck knew what a weighty statement that was. When you imagine him as a player, you think of Oakland and the Athletics, but as Red Sox fans we have the privilege of knowing Eck through his post-playing days more as a person.

During his many evenings in the booth, he shared personal stories and taught us turns of phrase that I’m very sure no one besides himself had used. It was just a good feeling to have someone willing to be so honest talking to you every night and it was an even better feeling to know he cared about the Red Sox as much as I did.

This Week in Red Sox History

David Ortiz has delivered so many clutch moments in October that I could probably fill this section for the next three weeks without issue if I wanted to. I like this one because it was the prologue to his heroics against the Yankees. It was sort of the beginning of that image of Ortiz a ton of young Red Sox fans have - not just a great hitter, but always stronger the brighter the lights are.

Athletes like that are rare and you stress in the moment while you watch them but looking back you wonder why you ever doubted that they’d come through when you needed them.