Red Sox Dragged Kicking and Screaming into Postseason

Five straight losses and yet still, the Boston Red Sox managed to find their way into the postseason, thanks to the equally weak performance of the Texas Rangers down the stretch. Sure, they celebrated last night, after the final score came in from Anaheim, but should they have?

This Red Sox team, which came into the season with high expectations has all the makings of the 2005 squad that got swept out of Chicago, a team riddled with inconsistency and underachievement. How else do you explain getting spotted eight games by the Yankees at the beginning of the season, only to drop ten of the last eleven against essentially the same squad, losing the division by ten games in the process? Talk about dangling the carrot in front of the horse.

Equally maddening is their performance against the top flight pitchers and teams in the league. The Sox have to know that going into October, they aren't going to draw a match-up against Baltimore and its gift wrapped pitching staff. No, they're going to start off against the Angels, who have a couple of stud starters in John Lackey and Scott Kazmir which they'll have to contend with. After that it's the winner of the Yankees and Tigers (likely), with Detroit being the optimal match-up for Boston, thanks to their 6-1 record against the Tigers in 2009, but a 1-2 combo of Justin Verlander and Edwin Jackson most likely won't be a walk in the park in a postseason setting either.

And if inconsistency isn't killing Boston at this stage, injuries certainly aren't helping. Josh Beckett is nursing a sore back. Jon Lester makes a crucial start Thursday against Cleveland after taking a line drive off the right leg in his last start in New York. Tim Wakefield has been virtually unavailable throughout the second half of the season. Mike Lowell just had synthetic fluid injected into his hip earlier this week. And let's not forget about Jason Varitek, who must have something wrong with him to be completely unable to throw anything more than lollipop tosses to second base on stolen base attempts all season.

This is a team that can win it all, but they're going to need to get hot and catch some breaks to do so. Otherwise, they're doing nothing more than being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the playoffs, only to go home early because mom and dad can't take it anymore.