Inside Baseball

Boston Blues  

After a promising start to the season, the high-priced Red Sox have inexplicably fallen out of the playoff race

By Stephen Cannella

What in the name of Ted Williams has happened to the Red Sox? In addition to having seven players selected for the All-Star Game, Boston at week's end still had the AL's third-best team ERA (3.81) and had outscored every other team in the majors except the Yankees, Angels and Rangers. Righthanders Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe were a combined 35-11 and one-two in the league in ERA. Interim general manager Mike Port had made several good moves, acquiring outfielder Cliff Floyd and relievers Alan Embree and Bob Howry. Even the team's defense was vastly better than it was last year, as was its production from the leadoff spot.

Nomar Garciaparra doesn't need to be reminded of his team's futility. Bob Rosato

Yet the Red Sox were all but out of the playoff picture, finishing last weekend 9 1/2 games behind the Yankees in the AL East and 8 1/2 in back of the Angels in the wild-card race with 21 games to play. Manager Grady Little essentially raised the white flag before last Friday's 7-2 win over the Blue Jays, saying it was time to start working young players into the lineup to begin evaluating them for next year. "We've examined everything from A to Z," says Port, "but when you go position by position, can we do a lot better than what we have? The answer is no."

Well, Boston has had a shaky bullpen, new first baseman Tony Clark has had a nightmare season at the plate (.212, three home runs), and the quality of the rotation nosedives after Martinez and Lowe. "They fooled everybody early in the year," says an AL advance scout, "but you can't go through a whole season with as many question marks as they have on their pitching staff. When you look at the whole team, they're not that good."

A lack of talent wasn't the only problem for the team with the second-highest Opening Day payroll ($108 million) in the majors. Little has hinted that his team -- which has 10 players who will become free agents after the season -- was distracted last month by talk of a strike. On Aug. 16, when the players' association set the Aug. 30 walkout date, the Red Sox trailed Anaheim by 2 1/2 games. Since then Boston had won just 10 of 22 through Sunday.

The Red Sox most likely won't allow the 2003 payroll to exceed the $117 million luxury-tax threshold. That means Boston, which already has roughly $70 million committed to eight players for next year, will have trouble re-signing many of those 10 free agents, including Floyd and closer Ugueth Urbina.

After starting 2002 with so much promise, the Red Sox still can't figure out what went wrong. "I don't think anyone can say why we haven't won," says Lowe.

Issue date: September 16, 2002

For more Inside Baseball see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, September 11. Click here to subscribe to SI.

 

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