Annual day of baseball sadness, Drake Maye and the dreadful Patriots, celebrating your .500 season

Monday 9/28/26

The Red Sox' regular season came to a close yesterday against the Cubs in Tampa, which was a little Twilight Zone-ish. Had you not known about the weather in these parts--say you lived in California and had been busy at work for a few days--and seen a clip of the game, you'd have been like, "What the..."

This must have been extra strange for the Red Sox having recently stood in that same clubhouse and celebrated their postseason berth (which was already strange because they'd waited around to do so long after the stadium had emptied out of fans, Rays players, and most personnel). To think, too, they could be back there come the weekend if they manage to defeat the Yankees.

Odd travel has served as a theme and rallying point for this year's Sox team. The long-delayed flight into New York, for instance, which seemed to bond the group. Maybe it continues. If it does, and you looked back later, you'd say, "Oh, that was fitting."

The last day of baseball's regular season always makes me melancholic. I don't need to go into detail in explaining how this also isn't true for me in the sense that I haven't any "regular" feelings or emotions because I don't have regular days. I am in something worse than hell, and when all you do is suffer in the extreme, you can't really say, "Oh, I feel a little sad when this happens..." so understand I'm taking some license. My pain and hopelessness consciously overwhelm every second of my days. I'm "denied" ordinary sadness, ordinary ups and downs, ordinary pleasures, things to look forward to, any of it. I guess I'm speaking conceptually. Or hypothetically, like how I'd be if I wasn't living what I am living. I'm still aware of something like this being there.

Obviously my team, the Red Sox, will be continue playing, but truth be told, if I had to make a guess, I don't think that'll be for too long. (My guess could just as easily be incorrect.) And for baseball's history--or most of it--the postseason has been its best part. But the regular season, that day out, day in grind, challenge, is baseball at the pump, the most life-like part of baseball. The part where there's the greatest wisdom to be gleaned. You can go an entire postseason--even now, with how needlessly it's drawn out/padded--without struggling. No one can do that in the regular season. At least not by their standards. Ted Williams struggling wasn't the same as Caleb Durbin struggling. But one takes my meaning.

Speaking of struggles...Drake Maye and the Patriots, who were throttled 35-6 yesterday by Jacksonville. Maye was awful again. Right now, he's the worst quarterback in the NFL. Statistically. And I'd say going by one's eyes as well. For a guy to dip this low in year three...that's usually not something you can do if you're a great player. Or someone who is going to be pretty good for seven or eight years. It's hard right now to think he's the former right now.

Obviously he isn't great presently, but great players always have that greatness in them. I mean it's hard to watch him play right now and think there's greatness residing within. Sometimes, everything lines up for you. You have a perfect storm in the positive manner. Athletes have perfect storms of high achievement with all these contributing factors. You need each of them to be what they are, to the max degree. But that doesn't last. It's the stuff of a a couple weeks, a month, two months in something like football, with the games only happening one a week. That stretch of last season may have been Drake Maye's perfect storm. Do you have no doubts that he's a franchise quarterback? How could you?

The Patriots play the Bills next. Now, if you play well and win that game, it can turn you around. Stranger things are often happening in sports, but here on this pre-dawn Monday morning there's no practical reason to think that's going to happen for these Patriots. They're so punchless and thin. Honestly, though, I don't mind seeing Mike Vrabel get his arrogant ass handed to him.

But, there's a long way to go. The Patriots talking heads on the postgame show--all of whom--Tom E. Curran, Ted Johnson, Michael Holley (who should stop doing his stupid voices, which wouldn't hide how ordinary he is, but I guess he'd be less grating/cartoon-y) are bad at the gig--were walking like it's late in the year and the Patriots are seven games under .500.

They've played all of one home game. You can founder for a while in today's NFL--and MLB--and be fine in the end. 10-7 will usually safely get it done, and 10-7 isn't so hot and there's a lot of mediocrity out there. I could also see this season being a near-disaster. The question will be what to do about Maye moving forward if he doesn't have a significant turnaround. Is he the quarterback you're committing to?

That's how bad he's looked for a while now that this becomes a prime question. You see that decision on the horizon. It isn't just these first three games. He was poor in the playoffs last year. He is really hurting you. He hurts your chances not just to win, but to be competitive as we saw yesterday, and he got A.J. Brown hurt. As I said, the best NFL quarterbacks are carvers. It's about intermediate and short throws. Surgically taking apart your opponent's defense. I have reservations that Maye can do that. On the physical side. Ironically, that may end up being a bigger issue than the mental side, which most people think is his big problem right now.

The Houston Astros won the AL West and then celebrated, the whole champagne and goggles bit, which I thought was embarrassing. Can we ever just be sincere and dignified in our society? Does everything have to be so contrived and de rigeur? Could we have higher standards for ourselves? You can't ever just act like you've been there before or you did your job? You always need to celebrate yourself? You were 81-81. Getting into the playoffs in baseball is fairly easy now. It's not an achievement. You used to be able to win 101 games and get left out of October.

We didn't have a full baseball season with a sub-.500 team making the playoffs, but we've never had one who finished exactly .500 and qualified until now. Meanwhile, the Phillies made it in over the Diamondbacks yesterday in the NL. When you come to that last day of the season and you need to win and someone else to lose--as Arizona and Texas did--then it's real tough. Arizona played well down the stretch to have a chance, but a case of too little, too late.