The Boston Red Sox need to wake up. They are just 1.5 games ahead of a Cleveland Guardians team that is red hot. That lead looks like smoke, and it's going to vanish without dramatic improvement.
They have lived by three words this season: "Dependency, Durability, and Discipline". Let's call them the "Three D's". These D's have defined their season from start to finish, and as September is coming to a close, so is this season, presumably.
Boston is clinging to its postseason hopes by a thread, and unless something changes, those hopes are going to break away.
Dependency
The 'dependency' problem is glaring. For all the hype surrounding this Red Sox lineup, it still feels like the same three or four players are asked to carry the entire load every night.
Roman Anthony was one of them, and now he's out for the rest of the season. He could be ready as soon as the playoffs start, but will the Red Sox even get there? Even if they manage to, he's not going to be 100%, truth be told.
The team's been relying on Trevor Story, Alex Bregman, and Jarren Duran. If they go flat, the entire offense goes flat. If that entire offense goes flat, then the pitching is going to have to carry them. But the pitching does nothing if they can't score.
This is in stark contrast to the Guardians, who are playing a team game. They have so many injuries and have even lost their star closer, Emmanuel Clase, due to a gambling investigation. They're doing this without him, who's arguably one of the best relievers in baseball.
Durability
The durability of this team is just damning. Injuries have gutted the Red Sox's pitching staff all year, and they have lost key players like Anthony and Marcelo Mayer for the year as well.
Tanner Houck is having Tommy John surgery, Kutter Crawford had surgery on his wrist to end his season, Alex Bregman was out almost two months due to a quad injury, and many more.
But Triston Casas tore his patellar tendon and had to get season-ending surgery. Wilyer Abreu has been injured for the home stretch, and they've been lingering on whether he's actually ready or not with his strained calf.
In September, it's not about how far a team goes; it's about who can survive the longest. The Red Sox are crumbling because of those injuries, and they've had to rely on Payton Tolle and Connelly Early, who are doing well, but were rushed into key roles in their rotation because they needed them this bad.
Discipline
Then there's the matter of the discipline, or lack thereof, really. The Red Sox have consistently beaten themselves with sloppy defense and questionable plate approaches. Even Trevor Story made an error on Thursday against the A's, and he hadn't made two errors all season long to this point.
Too many strikeouts with runners in scoring position, too many free passes handed out late in games, and they couldn't capitalize, too many mental relapses in the field. Championship-caliber teams tighten up in September. Boston is not a championship team. They're not even playoff contenders at this rate.
With the Guardians breathing down their necks and the Rangers creeping along with them as well, Boston's spinning the wheels of mediocrity this month. With the second-best run differential this season, they can't even get past the Athletics? A team that has been handing runs to other teams on a silver platter?
Recent history has repeated itself time and time again. Unless they can fix those "three D's" this weekend and turn the tide, this team will NOT be playing in October.