Black hole photo provided by NASA

The art of losing certainly isn’t hard to master for the Red Sox. They came into the season losing and they’re exiting the regular season the same way. Though they’ve hardly had an unsuccessful season, they seem to have lost all control over their control. How does a team only win 5 of the last 23 games played in September? During the prime of their season, the wins were great and provided a shining light towards a postseason. But when the pressure began to mount, they began to flake. They’ll be lucky if they can hold onto the Wild Card. But, I won’t hold my breath for two reasons:

1. In the bottom of the 6^th in their first game against the Yankees, they were losing by nine!  By the end of the game, it was 9-1 and the only hope was that the Rays lose to Toronto and then keep losing.
2.  The bullpen hasn’t been impressive for what seems like months. Remember how long it took Wake to pull out 200? Lester didn’t even make it to three innings and I think that was even way too long to be in. I’m beginning to question the pitching staff.

If Boston wants a shot at the postseason, they better start playing like it because with one game left against the Yankees followed by only three games left in the regular season and the Wild Card within reach for the Rays or the Angels, there isn’t room for losing this often.

It’s not the beginning of the season, then I had patience for loss, I understood that Carl Crawford was still syncing with the team, I understood that Adrian had to find his footing, it made sense that the kinks needed to be worked out, after all, it was a long winter. But Crawford has more or less been a letdown this season. Perhaps the expectations were tied in with the numbers on his contract rather than on the numbers he could actually put towards the team’s statistics.

And now, it’s the end of the season. Francona and Epstein have said there is no disconnect between the two of them, but there is a disconnect somewhere in the organization. Epstein recently said, “No one’s going to remember April. No one’s going to remember the last two weeks. Everyone’s going to remember what happens next, and we have the opportunity to control that.”Well, Theo, we remember April, and two weeks is on its way to four. Didn’t anyone ever tell them that you can’t wait until what happens next because you’re missing what happens now, right now, as the Sox dropped game number two against the Yankees?

These guys have been playing together for months, they’ve been so close to the post-season, the DL isn’t even close to as long as it was last year. If they can’t do it this year, they don’t deserve to.

The Globe’s Red Sox reporters always offer a solid view of the inner workings of the clubhouse, perhaps more so in recent years with the addition of the blogs and more columnists. With new Iphone apps like Boston Baseball pulling together stories “24-7″(more than just a tag line, certainly), one could spend all day reading about the Sox. After the last game at the end of the 2010 season, Peter Abraham described what most people never get to see, and even more don’t always understand. The players quickly parted ways, talking about their winter plans and overall, the longing to be elsewhere was palpable and pervasive, according to Abraham.

After another bitter loss on Sunday, Abraham’s narrative about Epstein pausing in the hallway to look at the front page of the 2007 World Series newspaper and the stunned expressions on the rookies’ faces, I started to think about another managerial possibility.(Having just looked at the Globe I see that they are inviting readers to play manager.) I don’t think it has to happen on the field. What can pull this team together mentally? A question posed by one fan, or was it Tony Mazz, on Friday, was what would happen if Tito just lost it, really going nuts in some way he never has before? The players should not tear out of the clubhouse after a game, as was reported yesterday. The season isn’t over, at least in this fan’s view.

The cyclical narrative, ending where we started, will be more painful than other collapses, simply because of the potential of this team. But if the mood is resignation and defeat, then we are all going to have more of the same. today and the rest of the week. My Red Sox tissue box will then offer comfort not only from allergies but also for the angry tears falling into the water of a washed out season.

Mazz is talking right now as I write this on the Baseball Reporters. This is the most important game of year, because of the ramifications but also because of the match-up Beckett vs Shields. Dave Sheinin of the Washington Post wrote about this very topic this morning.

All day, colleagues and friends have been saying something close to this. Seeing the Sox logo on my wall, one student(a Phillies fan) said, “They have to start winning now. Now.” On the superstitious side of the insanity, I sneaked into my secretary’s office after she left at 4:30 and turned her Dustin Pedroia bobblehead 45 degrees to the right toward the Ellsbury bobblehead. She told me not to touch them all season, and I haven’t until now, about 15 minutes ago.

But tonight is about Beckett. The Beckett question again. Where I started the New Year on this blog. There is that man on the stage looking up at the moon for answers. I might be doing the same between innings or even during the game, hoping that Beckett’s ankle or his entire landing leg will hold up because its holding up a lot more than the body that winds up above it.

On May 27th, Thomas’ Trolley named eight important elements to the Red Sox overcoming their abysmal April. Three of those were were identified as “Carl Crawford’s Awakening.”  As we eye the potential hurricane of playoff games (that is the emotional turmoil, accompanying possible joys and pains–we can’t have one without the other–of the postseason), there is one harvest that I see as most likely to win games. It is always difficult to narrow the field of driving influences and this seems to happen game after game, with commentators and journalists attempting to reveal the truth to consistency in a game that endlessly confounds and surprises. But on this day, when the tourists begin to chase their hats out of this resort town, from where I write, the unofficial end of summer, I have a singular focus.

Webster’s 20th Century Unabridged Dictionary says that Crawford is a variety of peach, one of which ripens early in the season and the other late. We already know what happened in April. Then Carl, the baseball playing Crawford, had three walk-off hits, which were a sign that he was easing into the pressure of wearing a Red Sox uniform and all the nerves that might go along with a major market team. Then injury struck. Those with the speed of a Crawford seem to be more prone to the hammy pull. After watching Carl hit his grand slam a few days ago, it was enough to make me forget for a moment that he is batting only.256. It was the ease of that swing under the pressures of not the last inning but bases-loaded variety, when the game had a chance to blow open for the Sox, which it did as Carl rounded the bases at a fraction of the speed we want from him at other times. To steal bases, though, one has to get on base. Carl, we need you. Now. The electricity of action must come now with the autumn winds. We need you to fly off the branch, ripening all the way around the bases.