Red Sox Have The Tying Run Cut Down At Home Plate With Two Outs In The Bottom Of The Ninth To Drop Their Series With The Twins

Whatever hope the remaining faithful fans had left might’ve died at home plate on Thursday night at Fenway Park.

In a seven-game homestand with three against the first-place Twins and four against the first-place Yankees, the Red Sox were about to begin their final stand. They lost the first game by leaving the tying run at second base in the bottom of the ninth, and they lost the finale by having the tying run cut down at home plate in the bottom of the ninth. They didn’t go down without a fight, but they did go down. Hard.

When you’re banking on teams like the Rays and the A’s to lose, while you yourself have to win something like 19 of 24 to have a shot, the odds are not particularly in your favor to begin with. Then you add in the fact that you’ve got to survive seven games against two of the best teams in the league with your two best starting pitchers out with injuries, and this was never going to be much of a fair fight.

If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that the Red Sox made the Twins work for it. I just don’t think that fans care much about silver linings at this juncture. We can debate whether or not the Red Sox should’ve sent Rafael Devers after JD Martinez banged a ball off the Green Monster. I personally think they should’ve held the runner, as the ball was being thrown home while Devers was still on third base. It still would’ve taken a perfect throw to get him, and that’s exactly what the Twins got. A perfect throw, a victory for Minnesota, and what feels like a dagger for Boston.

It doesn’t matter. The Red Sox lost the game, the series, and now they’ve still got to play the Yankees for four games, two of which they don’t have a starter for and one of the games they’re sending a pitcher out to make his Red Sox debut after he was released by the Brewers. It feels like they’re being led to slaughter this weekend.

Officially, the Red Sox have a 3.3% chance of making the playoffs still, but given all the circumstances — the games they’d have to win, the teams they’d had to beat, the roster they’d have to do it with, the misfortunes that the A’s and Rays would have to suffer — it seems like this series might’ve been the final nail in the coffin.

If there’s anything that we can take from this series loss from the Twins, no matter how bad it gets, no matter how depleted they may be at this stage of the season, the Red Sox are not going down without a fight. Shit, they might lose all four to the Yankees. They might lose three. One thing is for certain, though, and that’s that they won’t roll over and die. Teams will still have to earn it against them. No, it’s not a silver lining for me. But it does help me sleep at night. Barely.