R.I.P. Red Sox 2010

As much as it pains me to admit it, the Red Sox season is over as neither the Yankees or the Rays are going to relinquish their lead over Boston in the standings. Here's a snippet from the eulogy of their season.

It is sad to have to write this eulogy this early. I know this team would be about 10 games better with a decent bullpen, a competent 3rd base coach, and a reasonable amount of injuries. This team was playing so well, even with Ellsbury and Beckett out, in mid June, before Pedroia went down. Just before he was about to get back, Youkilis went down, and then once he came back, he got hurt again, after 2 days, and is now likely out for the year. Even with all the injuries, this team stayed in the race in the toughest division in baseball for 5 months, and still have a good enough record to be tied for the lead in the AL West with the Texas Rangers, if they were in that division. In the NL, they’d still be leading the Wild Card. This eulogy is not so much a result of a bad team, but bad luck and a bad situation, division wise. That’s what makes this so tough.

Next year will be better. The Rays are sure to lose either one or both of Carlos Pena and Carl Crawford, and possibly their stud closer Rafael Soriano as well. All of the Sox injured players will be back and hopefully the team will stay healthy. They discovered decent young players like Ryan Kalish and Daniel Nava this year, who will hopefully be part of their team next year in some way. As long as they don’t lose a big chunk of the team in free agency, guys like David Ortiz, Adrian Beltre, and Victor Martinez, they should be very competitive next year.

I love how we cant wait for baseball economics to take over and Tampa Bay to get royally boned by other teams willing to pay more for players (i.e. Boston, New York). It's like rooting for vultures to slowly rip apart a person. Wonderful.