With 27 games to go on Sept. 1st, the Sox were in first place with a nine game lead over the Devil Rays; not making the playoffs didn’t even seem like a possibility. Losing 17 out of 22 games will change any team’s fortunes; while they have suffered some injuries to their pitching staff, even with a patched together rotation they should have been able to win at least 10 of those games just with their very expensive and explosive lineup. But so far that very expensive and supposedly explosive lineup has been nowhere to be found. Years of relying on high prized big name free agents has seemed to catch up with the Red Sox as their lack of depth is hurting them when they need it the most. Highly sought after free agents Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford have done little during September to ease the team’s slid; Carl Crawford may go down as one of the worst free agent signings ever as he is hitting only .255 this season with 11 home runs and only 18 stolen bases. That is not a good sign for a player in his first of a seven year contract worth $142 million; imagine how productive he will be in four years once he has lost most of his speed. Instead of blowing that money on Crawford they should have let him go to the rival Yankees and instead spend that money on some much needed pitching depth. When a knuckleballer a few years past forty is your third best starting pitcher then you have some serious problems, it is amazing that they didn’t try to at least add more depth at some point, that would have come in handy about now.
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