Red Sox make the playoffs! Also, memories of my dad and grandmother, and a cameo from Lorin "How Bad Do You Want to Be Published" Stein, author of "Get on My Desk, Baby Girl"

Saturday 9/27/25

The Red Sox frustrated me for a lot--most--of this season. It took them a while to get going, and they played some sloppy ball, with bad defense, tons of errors, mental mistakes, and a galling lack of fundamentals.

I think--understandably--it's hard to win like that. What I should have taken into greater account, though, is that most teams now play sloppy baseball and are bad at the fundamentals. The problem is general across baseball.

That's one reason why everyone is so...mediocre. No one in the AL is going to win 95 games. When was the last time that happened? For the second year in a row, no one in the sport is going to win 100 games. In the AL, you have a couple teams, in the Tigers and Astros, acting as if they're trying to give away that final postseason berth. Looks like the Astros are going to out-lose the Tigers and fail to make it to October.

But there have also been things about the Red Sox that I've liked. They have played themselves into the postseason. They just went 4-2 on what could have been a road trip that knocked them out of a playoff spot. Last night, with three games to go and their magic number at one, they still weren't out of the woods. The Astros were playing against a weak Angels team later in the evening, and you couldn't count on them losing.

The Sox trailed the Tigers--who obviously have much to play for--3-0 with the game getting late. They scratched across a run in three separate innings--so they were grinding--and then walked it off in the ninth.

That's a moxie win! A gut check win. The last five have been gut check wins. There are no laughers in there. When Roman Anthony went down, this team had a problem. They still do. They're a much more potent ball club with Anthony at the top of the line-up. Jarren Duran had a big hit last night, but he's been bad in that lead-off spot, racking up K after K. And he's mostly stopped hitting doubles. Was stuck on 39 for the season for what felt like weeks.

But they toughed it out. I don't think this is an overly tough squad mentally. But hey--they did it.

Amazingly, stupidly, avariciously, the game wasn't on NESN last night, but rather Apple TV+. which is a joke. This meant that many New Englanders couldn't watch the Sox clinch a postseason spot. How nuts is that? What are you doing, Rob Manfred and greedy, greedy, greedy MLB? And I'm sure if the Red Sox wanted to, they could have thrown Apple some money and got the game shown on NESN as well for their fans.

The Red Sox, though, aren't going to look after their fans like that. It's like a middle finger to that seventy-something lifetime fan up there in Vermont who has lived and died with this team for their entire life. These are the games that make that fan happy. They don't come around as often as you might think, with the four championships this century and all of that. It's been four years since the Red Sox made the playoffs.

Telling anecdote: It's 1986, and me and my dad went to a Sox game at the end of the season. They had clinched the division--there was no Wild Card--the day before. I remember asking my dad if certain guys--certain stars--would play, and he said at least some of them would. There were contract incentives, that kind of thing.

Anyway, we're heading into the ballpark and my dad was talking to some guy who had started talking to us. And my dad said, "Last night was the first time ever I wanted them to lose"--meaning, so we could see them clinch.

I can imagine the look on my face...wanting the Red Sox to lose????? No!!!!! Never!!!! I was taken aback. Even though I understood the point. I love the Red Sox. My gosh have I loved the Red Sox my entire life. My dad loved them. My grandmother loved them. Some of my most cherished moments with another person involve me, in my early twenties, out of college, visiting my eighty-something grandmother out in Readville, and the two of us sitting in front of what I'll call her throwback television, watching the Red Sox that one time a week they weren't on cable, which she didn't have.

So what do you think I--person without Apple TV+--did last night? I basically followed the live MLB play-by-play update of the game for the duration. I knew the Sox were going to get the timely hit that eventually they'd need. Didn't feel to me like a night when someone was going to mash the three-run homer which would be followed by a two run job and a solo shot later on. A night in which hits with a couple outs and runners in scoring position would be needed. And so it came to pass.

How did these Red Sox do it? Well, league play helped in 2025, as I said. There are no great teams, there really are no very good teams. This is as open a postseason as you'll ever find. Anyone can win it this year.

But as for the Sox themselves: Garrett Crochet. Delivered. Had a couple, maybe, minor dips in his season, but almost every time he went out there, he gave you what you wanted. And ultimately what you needed. Team MVP, not close. The guy. The Red Sox have not had "the guy" as a starter in a while. They had him this year in Garrett Crochet. He'll be on the hill in Game 1 of the Wild Card round.

They have come back to earth in a worrying way--as in, you must be concerned about what they'll give you in the postseason--but Lucas Gialito and Brayan Bello pitched well and helped carry this team for a long stretch of the season. They both pitched like rock solid number two guys--and fringe number ones--for said stretch. This meant that the Red Sox usually got three well-pitched games in a row, repeatedly, for, like, the summer. Or however long it was.

Aroldis Chapman. As I wrote before the season, I thought he'd be bad. My bad. His walk totals were alarming in the last few campaigns. How was I supposed to know that all of a sudden he was going to stop walking guys? That came out of nowhere. He had a stretch where he went into all-time great mode. One of the all-time great closer runs. Not long ago I documented on here how long he went without giving up an earned run, and I believe that was in August and the last earned run was in May. Or something like that. He went close to what aggregated to a game-and-a-half without giving up a hit. When his ERA dipped below 1.00, I wrote in these pages that he should be the Cy Young winner. Not that he would be, but should be. Nearly as soon as I wrote that, he scuffled through a couple outings, but he appears to have that stellar form locked down once again.

Then you have Trevor Story. This is not a great player. The holes in his game are prominent. He's someone you can pitch to. But the baseball season is long, and if you can hang in there and make the most of the mistakes pitchers throw you, have some grit, you can have better-than-decent numbers. As in, 25 homers and 95 RBI, which is where Story will finish.

You can say all you want that RBI don't matter, and I'll just think you have no clue how the game really works, how sports work, how pressure in sports work (and probably pressure in life). Hitting with two out and trailing by two runs late in the game and runners on second and third is different--no matter what analytics people will have you believe--than hitting in the bottom of the third in a tie game with no one on and happy kids ordering cotton candy in the stands behind you. It's just not the same. Some guys are much better suited to that first scenario than other guys. Look at David Ortiz. He had something else in the blood. And that, more than anything else, is why Ortiz was Ortiz.

Story drove in runs during times of the season when it seemed like no one else was. Or not reliably, anyway. I don't think this team has much in the way of leadership. Duran is a fool. Last night, he was swearing during his postgame interview. We know about the incident last year when he couldn't handle some very benign heckling from a fan, stepped out of the box--in other words, paused his at-bat--to call the guy a "faggot." Awful. He's not a leader.

I think Story is the closest the Red Sox have to one. He's had ups and downs, he's been around. I think he's fairly measured. Even-keeled. And he struggled mightily for a while this year. In the spring, he looked like one of the worst players in the league. But, he gutted through, started accumulating RBI in chunks when the Sox needed those runs, and by some point in the summer, he had some solid trad stats and you thought, huh, this guy could hit 20 homers and knock in 90. Which you'll totally take--and which you don't expect in 2025--from Trevor Story.

Also: Garrett Whitlock. He became a weapon in the bullpen. You'll need him to be big, I believe, in October, to do some damage. Between he and Chapman, the Red Sox can really lock it down late, shorten some games when they have the lead. That's the best late pitcher combo in the game right now. Don't underestimate that.

And finally: The trade of Rafael Devers. Classic case of addition by subtraction. I think the Red Sox did it for mostly the wrong reason--to save the money they never should have thrown at Devers in the first place--but even if it was largely by accident, this was the smartest move the organization made all season.

As it presently stands, the Red Sox would be heading to the Bronx to take on the Yankees in the first round. It's a best two-out-of-three, with all the games being played at the higher seed's park. Winnable series for Boston, but also a loseable series. They've beaten the Yankees a bunch this year. You start to think the Yankees are due, because these season series are very rarely lopsided--they tend to even out in the end--but you're also not sure if the Sox simply have things that the Yankees don't match up well against.

The Red Sox, like any team from here on out, can beat anyone or lose to anyone. They'd have to make it to the ALCS to get Roman Anthony back in the line-up. Obviously, that's getting way ahead of things. Before we even talk about how hard it is to be thrown into the October fire (which I think is an especially vermilion-y blaze) and ramp up on the spot. Find your timing, etc.

How far do I think they'll go? I have no idea. For me, I want to see home playoff games at Fenway. Less than that, I'd be disappointed. Let's face it, I'd be disappointed if they don't win it all, but you know what I mean.

There was, I believe, a scenario in which the Sox might have had to start Crochet in game number 162. He would have been on four days rest, it could have been win or go home. Even if the Sox lost last night, the Astros gagged again and fell to the Angels, which would have gotten Boston into the playoffs anyway, but you prefer to win your way in.

This isn't, say, publishing, where everyone wants and needs to have whatever they get, which they don't deserve, handed to them. "Guggenheim for you, and a New Yorker fiction slot for you, and a ten best books of the autumn citation for you, and an FSG book deal for you although we all know there's no one who likes your writing...now who's up for some Lorin Steining!"

Earning is always better for the soul, and, frankly, for the world and humanity. And the Boston Red Sox earned their way into the 2025 postseason.